29 April,2026 12:14 PM IST | Nagpur | mid-day online correspondent
Representational image. File pic
A local BJP leader has lodged a police complaint after his WhatsApp account was allegedly hacked, with fraudsters sending messages to his contacts seeking money, officials said.
As reported by news agency PTI, Dayashankar Tiwari, the BJP's Nagpur city president, came to know about the fraud on Tuesday, April 28, when an acquaintance grew suspicious and called him.
Following the suspicion, the BJP leader approached the cyber police, who registered a complaint.
Police, while briefing about the incident, said that the concerned account was later restored. They also advised people to verify such requests before making any transactions.
A retired IT professional who has been creating awareness about cyber fraud threats for years was himself allegedly duped of around Rs 2.5 lakh by cybercriminals. "I was under tremendous stress that day due to a personal urgency, and the fraudsters targeted me in the exact timeframe when I was expecting a similar call," explained the complainant, a Santacruz resident.
"The balance in the account was a small amount, so I was not worried initially. But I realised later that the fraudsters had managed to get an instant loan issued on my account, duping me of a much larger amount," he added.
According to the complainant, he had applied for a name change request for his electricity connection with Tata Power on April 3, 2026. Following this, he received an acknowledgement and was told by a company staffer that he would receive a confirmation call once the change was done. An SMS update notified him on April 6 that the change had taken effect. On April 14, a man identifying himself as a Tata Power official allegedly contacted the complainant over a WhatsApp call, asking for confirmation of e-KYC data, insisting that "this is a confirmation call to close the name change".
The complainant believed the caller's claims, as the latter possessed exact information about his electricity connection, including the newly issued consumer number and address. The complainant stated that, being occupied with a stressful situation that day, he didn't think it through and proceeded to install an APK file on the instructions of the caller, only to receive debit messages from his bank.
(With inputs from PTI)
