Gurugram: Zameer Uddin Shah, the elder brother of actor Naseeruddin Shah, was conned by cyber-criminals who defrauded him of nearly Rs 1 lakh earlier this week.
A case of cyber fraud has been registered by Shah, a retired lieutenant-general, with the Cyber Police in Gurugram. Shah had served in the Indian Army from 1968 to 2008.
Shah, who also served as vice-chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, currently resides in Gurugram’s Ansal Palam Vihar. The fraud took place when he had booked a hotel online in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand.
According to the FIR, Shah recounted that he had made the reservations through his account on Booking.com.
“I had to pay them a refund of Rs 9398.28/- as tax, so I searched their customer care number on Google and I called the number 8888503958 as the customer care number,” he mentioned.
“I contacted this number on 1 March 2025 and they requested me to deposit Rs 9398.28/- by UPI. I did so and when I got no confirmation, I contacted the same number again and the person talking to me insisted I transfer the money, so I made another 6 transactions from my Axis Bank account.”
The transactions on 1 March, according to the FIR, were of the following amount: Rs 9,398 (four times), Rs 18,796, and Rs 37,592. ThePrint has seen the contents of the FIR.
When the amount was still not credited to the travel portal, Shah contacted the same number again. This time, the fraudster sought Shah for his debit card details, including PIN. This made Shah suspicious who then filed a complaint via the Cyber Crime Helpline (1930).
Sandeep Kumar, Station House Officer (SHO) of the Cyber West Police Station (Gurugram), told ThePrint that the police had registered the FIR immediately on receipt of the complaint on 5 March.
(Edited by Insha Waziri)
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