Surat, Aug 13: The Surat City Cyber Crime Cell in Gujarat has arrested an alleged associate of a Jamtara-based cyber fraud gang who, according to police, handled money siphoned from victims through mule bank accounts and converted the proceeds into cash before routing them back to other members of the network.

The accused, identified as 26-year-old Sitaram Mandal, a welding shop worker from Bisanpur village in Giridih district of Jharkhand, was taken into custody from Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad, where he was already lodged.

He was subsequently produced before a court and police obtained his two-day custody remand.

The arrest followed an investigation into a complaint in which a Surat resident’s son allegedly lost Rs 5,02,562 after downloading a fake RTO E-Challan APK file sent through WhatsApp.

Police said the incident began on November 20, 2025, when an unknown WhatsApp number sent the malicious APK file to the phone of the victim’s friend, Rakesh Sharma.

The compromised account was then used to circulate the file in a WhatsApp group involving the victim’s son’s friends.

After the victim downloaded the file, his phone was allegedly compromised without his knowledge, and Rs 5,02,562 was transferred from his bank account in multiple transactions.

The complainant contacted the national cybercrime helpline immediately after discovering the fraud and later approached the Surat Cyber Crime Cell on December 14, 2025.

A case was registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station under Sections 318(4), 336(2), 338, 336(3), 340(2), 61(2) and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act, 2008.

Police said a technical investigation, including scrutiny of banking transactions, led them to Mandal, who was found to be in Sabarmati Jail.

Investigators alleged that Rs 1,47,954 from the complainant’s son’s account had been used for a credit bill payment arranged through an earlier arrested accused, Nishit Nathwani.

According to police, Nathwani retained a commission of 15 to 20 per cent and deposited the remaining cash through a cash deposit machine into Mandal’s bank account.

Mandal allegedly deducted a further 5 to 10 per cent commission before handing over the remaining cash to absconding members of the Jamtara gang in Jharkhand.

Police also found that Rs 2.72 lakh linked to cyber fraud involving this and other victims had been deposited through CDM transactions into Mandal’s Axis Bank account between November 21 and December 18, 2025.

The account recorded credit transactions totalling Rs 15,87,400 between September 19, 2025 and January 8, 2026. Police said Mandal has a previous criminal record, including an FIR registered in Giridih district in 2017 under cheating, forgery and Information Technology Act provisions.

He is also named in five Ahmedabad City Cyber Crime Police Station cases registered in 2026 involving cheating, impersonation, conspiracy and offences under the IT Act.

The investigation has found that the gang used malicious APK files designed to resemble legitimate applications or services.

According to police, once a victim clicked on and installed the file, the application sought administrative permissions that could allow access to SMS messages, contacts, call logs and photographs.

The gang allegedly used genuine-looking bank names, logos and icons to persuade victims to enter banking and KYC information.

Once access to banking details was obtained, money was transferred from the victim’s bank or payment applications to mule accounts or credit cards.

The proceeds were subsequently withdrawn or converted into cash and deposited through CDMs into accounts controlled by other members of the network, according to investigators.

Police said five accused had already been arrested in connection with the case before Mandal’s arrest.

The Cyber Crime Cell has urged people not to download APK files received from unknown sources, even when they appear to relate to RTO challans, banks, KYC updates, customer support, government schemes, appointment bookings or other familiar services.

It also advised people not to click on suspicious links received through SMS or email.

Kolkata : A female nursing staff member of state-run N.R.S. Medical College and Hospital in central Kolkata was found dead under mysterious circumstances on the hospital premises on Thursday.

Her body was found in the hospital washroom early in the morning. The deceased nursing staff was on night duty at the high dependency unit (HDU) of the gynaecology department of the said hospital on Wednesday.

As per the latest information available, after she was reported missing from duty for some time, her colleagues started looking for her, and finally discovered her body in a toilet early this morning.

The police were informed by the hospital authorities immediately. The body of the deceased nurse has been sent for post-mortem. The actual reason behind the death will be known only after the detailed autopsy report is available, said a hospital insider.

Two years ago, in August 2024, the body of a female junior doctor was recovered from the seminar room of the emergency department of state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in North Kolkata. Later, it was found that she was brutally raped and murdered the night before.

There were massive protests throughout the state over the incident, which gradually spread beyond the state and the national boundaries. The entire state witnessed uproar over the incident. This time, a nurse died mysteriously in a government hospital in Kolkata.

After that mishap, the previous Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress regime promised several measures to increase surveillance and security in the state-run medical establishments. However, even after that, questions were often raised over how much of this had been implemented in the last two years.

In March this year, a young man died after being trapped in the elevator of R.G. Kar, with the malfunctioning elevator not being attended to by the hospital staff for a long time. In the same month, a senior-citizen patient admitted at the same hospital died while walking to the second-floor toilet after not getting a stretcher.

Kolkata, Aug 12: Wahab Alam, the Pakistani national arrested in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, was sent by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to collect information about the Indian Army, Navy and Railways in the eastern sector of the country.

Alam was arrested in the Habra area of the district.

Insiders from the state police said that during the marathon interrogation by the sleuths of the Special Task Force (STF) of the state police, he had admitted that he entered India through the India-Nepal border in 2012 and has since been staying in different pockets of the state, shifting bases from time to time.

After his arrest, the STF sleuths also seized forged Indian identity documents from his possession, like an Aadhaar card, PAN card and EPIC card. It is learnt that he managed these forged identity documents through another person, Muhammad Izaz, who was also arrested by the STF in the Topsia area in East Kolkata following Alam’s interrogation.

In fact, state police insiders said that before shifting to Habra, from where he had been arrested, Alam used to stay at Izaz’s residence in Topsia. However, as per information collected by the STF sleuths, he left the Topsia area immediately after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise started in West Bengal earlier this year before the recently concluded Assembly polls.

STF sleuths found that Alam was probably planning to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, and hence decided to shift to Habra, which is fairly close to the India-Bangladesh border. The STF sleuths are currently interrogating Alam and Izaz to know about their other associates in the state.

Interrogation is also ongoing to find out the kind of information that Alam has already passed on to his handlers in Pakistan.

Reacting to media persons on the arrest of the Pakistani national, the state Municipal Affairs and Urban Development Minister, Agnimitra Paul, said that such elements could make their roots deeper in West Bengal because of the “nurturing by the previous Trinamool Congress regime”.

“My appeal to people is to be alert. If any suspicious persons or any suspicious activity is detected in your locality, kindly contact the local police station immediately,” she said.