Commuters wait to board a local train in Mumbai on Wednesday. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty) In three separate incidents, pickpockets on local trains stole wallets of three commuters and used their ATM cards to withdraw a total of Rs 1.38 lakh. All three commuters had written their ATM pin numbers on a piece of paper and kept it in their wallets.
In the first incident, the 45-year-old complainant on February 8 around 9.40 am, took a local train from Kandivali railway station to his office in Mumbai Central. At Goregaon, he realised someone had stolen his wallet. He then got down at Mumbai Central and got alerted on his mobile phone that the thief used his ATM card around 10 am to withdraw Rs 2,000.
The complainant had written his ATM pin number on a piece of paper and kept it in the wallet. He called his bank to block the card, but the fraudster by then had withdrawn Rs 15,000. He registered an FIR with the Borivali government railway police (GRP) station.
In the second incident, a 32-year-old woman lodged an FIR with the Kalyan railway station. The incident took place on February 7, when she was returning home to Kalyan from Akola in an express train. Around 6 am, she woke up as the train neared Kalyan railway station. She kept her bag near her seat and went to wash her face. A thief stole her purse from the bag and fled. He later used her ATM card and pin number, kept in the purse, to withdraw Rs 6,000.
As reported earlier by The Indian Express, a 59-year-old man from Pen, Raigad lost Rs 1.17 lakh in a similar manner. On February 3, he was traveling with his wife and daughter from Virar to Kopar. A thief stole his wallet, and he realised only after getting down at Kopar. He checked his phone and was shocked to see messages from his bank alerting him that Rs 1.17 lakh had been withdrawn from his bank account.
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