An 84-year-old retired soldier was allegedly subjected to a digital arrest and duped of ₹30 lakh, police said.

According to the complaint, Davinder Singh of Phase 3B1 told police that he received a call on September 19 from a person claiming to be from SBI customer care. The caller allegedly told him that ₹1 lakh had been withdrawn using his credit card. Singh told the caller that he did not have such a card.

The caller then allegedly transferred the call to a man who introduced himself as Ajay Bansal from the “Bombay fraud department”. Bansal allegedly threatened to implicate Singh in a money-laundering case and told him that his bank accounts needed verification.

According to the complaint, the accused persuaded Singh to transfer ₹30 lakh from his HDFC and SBI accounts in the name of the Reserve Bank of India. Police have registered a case against unidentified persons under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act.

Urmi Aggarwal, 71, of Ambedkar Nagar, Kharar, told police that she was searching online for the electricity department’s contact number on September 21 after she did not receive her electricity bill.

After she called a number found through Google, the person who answered allegedly sent her a link and asked her to pay ₹10 through Google Pay to receive the bill. The caller then allegedly persuaded her to download an app on her phone.

Aggarwal told police that she later realised that her phone had been hacked. Police said the accused withdrew ₹2 lakh from her bank account through eight separate transactions.

Police registered separate cases against unidentified persons in both incidents and are tracing the mobile numbers and bank accounts used in the transactions.