Patna: Police have begun investigation after dozens of poor villagers lost money from their bank accounts shortly after they had cast their votes at a polling centre during the ongoing village council elections in Bihar. This was the second time in the past one week that the voters had to pay a heavy price literally for participating in elections.
The police registered a case and began investigation following written complaints from the villagers that between Rs40,000-Rs25,000 were withdrawn from their bank accounts moments after they had submitted their Aadhaar numbers and gave thumb impressions at a polling station in Baisi block of Purnia district on November 29. The Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
The villagers came to know about the deduction of money from their bank accounts when messages to this effect started coming on their cell phone numbers registered with the bank. The victims rushed to the bank to confirm the news and after finding the matter true they registered cases with the Baisi police station. All the victims had cast their votes at the polling booth number 133 located at Rahua village in Baisi block.
“Many villagers have complained money was withdrawn from their bank accounts soon after they had given their thumb impressions and submitted their Aadhaar cards during the voting process. We are investigating the case,” a police official in charge of the investigation, Sunil Kumar Suman said on Saturday. The police official said that they were collecting details of deducted amounts from the bank.
What is strange, all the victims are women and they literally had to pay a very heavy price for use of technology during the voting process. Pratima Devi lost Rs40,000, Minti Devi Rs30,000, Sagri Devi Rs25,000, Chamkila Devi Rs 24,000, Prabha Devi Rs21,000, Sona Devi Rs8,000, Rinki Devi Rs7,200, Bobby Devi Rs6,000, Vidya Devi Rs5,000, Kalo Devi Rs3188, Kaili Devi Rs1787 and so on.
Reports said all the victims have their accounts with Canara bank. “We have put the bank accounts of all victim women on hold soon after getting the information. We too have begun investigation at our own level,” bank manager Kumar Abhishek told the local media.
A similar incident was reported from neighbouring Munger district last week when several voters complained about withdrawal of money from their bank accounts after casting votes. During investigation it was found that a polling staff Ravi Kumar Singh had collected thumb impressions of the voters twice — one for casting votes and another for withdrawal of money.
The accused who was later arrested by the police also confessed to his involvement in crime saying he had “withdrawn the money from the voters’ bank accounts with the help of a mobile application”. The polling staff had been deployed to handle biometric systems at the polling booth to detect fake voters and prevent rigging but he misused the technology. Around Rs40,000 was withdrawn from the bank accounts of different voters, as per the information.
