Udupi-Chikkamagaluru Member of Parliament (MP) Shobha Karandlaje lost more than Rs 15 lakh from her salary account after it was allegedly hacked. The hack was confirmed by Shobha who claimed that she did not receive an SMS prompt for any transaction.
It was when she got her salary account entry book updated last week that she found that more than Rs 15 lakh was missing from the account. The money was withdrawn in the past two months from her account in State Bank of India's Parliament House branch in New Delhi.
Shobha approached Parliament Street Police Station and filed a complaint on Tuesday after getting to know about the missing amount. The amount is estimated to be close to Rs 15.62 lakh.
“We have registered a case into the matter at North Avenue police station under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code. It will be transferred to the cyber cell for detailed investigation. We are getting the details of the transactions from the bank to find out whether the transactions were done in the country or from outside the country,” said a police officer speaking to The Hindu.
Police are investigating whether her account was hacked or the details of her account were compromised by an official at the bank. “The police is also probing whether any of the bank staff compromised the bank account details of the MP since she claimed that she did not receive the SMS alert,”a senior police official told Deccan Herald.
Shortly after the news of the hack emerged, Congress leader Priyank Kharge quipped about the incident taking a potshot at PM Narendra Modi.
PM had said that he will put in 15 lakhs in everybody’s bank account. Looks like someone was tired of waiting for it & instead withdrew it directly from our Karnataka MP.
— Priyank Kharge (@PriyankKharge) February 13, 2019
I hope the Govt will wake up to the need for Center of Excellence in cyber security https://t.co/aXENHWHWNh