18-07-2025
Life in jail for 9 in first digital-arrest conviction
Kolkata: In possibly the first such sentencing in the country for cybercrimes, a Kalyani trial court on Friday awarded life imprisonment to nine scammers who had extorted Rs 1 crore from a Ranaghat resident by threatening him with 'digital arrest' last year.
The court agreed with the prosecution's charge that such crimes were nothing short of "economic terrorism".
Arrested from Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat, the nine convicted persons, one of them a woman, are part of a larger gang that has reportedly amassed Rs 100 crore by cheating 108 people across India. They are also likely to face trials elsewhere in the country.
Kalyani additional sessions judge Suberthi Sarkar, who had convicted the nine on Thursday, sentenced them to life imprisonment under BNS 338, which involves forging of documents, and 10 other penal offences under both BNS and IT Acts.
The defence indicated they would appeal against the conviction in Calcutta High Court.
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IGP (CID) Akhilesh Kumar Chaturvedi said the nine cyber criminals were tripped by strong digital evidence. "Investigation revealed the fraudsters were siphoning money through multiple bank accounts spread across different states. Police seized numerous bank passbooks, ATM cards, SIM cards and mobile phones during the operation.
A detailed analysis of beneficiary accounts and phone numbers led us to uncover this sophisticated network," the IGP said.
During the five-month trial, 29 witnesses from four different states testified physically before the Kalyani additional sessions judge. They included the SHO of Andheri (West) Police Station and branch managers of SBI, PNB, Canara Bank, Bandhan Bank, Federal Bank and Ujjivan Small Finance Bank from four states.
The charge sheet ran into 2,600 pages.
Special prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee said they highlighted the ordeal of other victims of the gang and stressed that such frauds were an "an act of economic terrorism". "We told the judge how the hard-earned money of two victims — one a retired professor and the other a retired state govt engineer — were transferred outside the country, one destination probably being Cambodia. This was their life's entire savings. Similarly, we highlighted how another victim had to sell his house to pay the accused and was forced to shift to an ashram," he told TOI.
