india

Updated: Oct 10, 2019 23:55 IST

Two days after the arrest of seven members an ATM skimming gang, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Sandeep Garg, on Thursday, revealed that the gang was active in 9 states such as Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The SSP said the accused have duped about 1,500 people in 90 cities and towns in 9 states over the past five years.

On Tuesday, Sangrur police had arrested Raju Kumar, Babblu, Parveen and Rajesh Garg who belong to Pehowa in Haryana, while Dinesh Kumar is from Bhiwani, and Bittu and Randhir are from Kaithal. The accused were arrested near Bhawanigarh at a brick kiln.

“The accused have robbed around Rs 60 lakh from people with limited education near ATMs on the pretext of helping them. They swapped their ATM cards in a skimming machine and a member of the gang tapped the ATM machine where the user entered their pin number. Police have recovered Rs4.54 lakh, 64 ATM cards, one skimming machine and a car from them. They have duped about 30 people in Sangrur district as well,” said Garg.

Police said that after interrogation of the accused, 6 more people have been booked in the case. The accused Bittu, Balinder Singh, Rajesh, Sanjay and Rinku belong to Pehowa in Haryana, while Sanjay hails from Hazampur.

“The accused have been facing 60 FIRs in different states and 30 cases of cheating have been identified in Sangrur. However, 47 complaints are still pending in the district. The four accused, Raju, Babblu, Rajesh and Parveen are declared public offenders,” the SSP added.

The accused were booked under Sections 420 (cheating) and 379 (theft) of IPC and Sections 66,66B, 66C and 66D of Information Technology (IT) Act in police stations across the district.