Rajkot: A 36-year-old schoolteacher from Chandresh Nagar in Morbi fell victim to a sophisticated cyber fraud, losing over Rs 26 lakh after unknowingly downloading a malicious file sent via WhatsApp.The victim, Kajal Patel, who teaches at Taluka School No. 2, lodged a complaint at Morbi City ‘A’ Division police station. According to her complaint, on the night of June 13, an unknown sender forwarded an APK file — purportedly related to an RTO challan — to her husband’s WhatsApp number. Unable to open the file, he forwarded it to Kajal’s phone. Upon clicking, the file vanished instantly, and she thought no more of it.The next day, her husband noticed that all incoming calls to Kajal’s number were being redirected to another number. Alarmed, they checked her HDFC Bank account and found that Rs 26.24 lakh had been siphoned off in eight separate transactions.Patel said she never used net banking services and suspected that her inactive Gmail account was hacked and used to activate net banking without her knowledge. She also alleged that the bank failed to send OTPs or make verification calls for such high-value transfers.She called the 1930 cybercrime helpline and filed an online complaint.Police believe the APK file installed malware that allowed fraudsters to take control of her device and access sensitive banking information. The case has been registered under Section 318 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for cheating and relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act.
