Television actress Debina Bonnerjee's stolen ATM card was misused and cops refused to file an FIR

Debina Bonnerjee lost her handbag a few weeks ago and it turns out that the actress's ATM card has now been misused. Says Debina says, `The bag that was stolen recently had many ATM cards in it and I got them all blocked, save for one since it was supposed to have expired by then.

But as it happens that card was still active, even though Gurmeet already has a new card for the same account. To add to this, my registered mobile number for this card was not active; this means that all this while when my card was being swiped, I didn't get any alerts on my phone. But when I checked my statement and got that number sorted, I realised that we've already lost Rs 5 lakh.`

The actress says that initially there was a lot of confusion since the stolen card was not supposed to be active. `When we first checked our statement, I thought that Gurmeet had withdrawn the money and he thought that I had done so. Accordingly, we replenished the account thinking that the other was spending it. But now we have realised that the old card that was stolen was actually swiped during these transactions,` she explains.


The actress has now brought this to her bank's notice and requested them to block the old card. `The new card is with Gurmeet and we just assumed that the old card was deactivated. But it was still working and whoever stole my bag has been withdrawing all this money from various places in India. The bank sent us details of ATM locations from across the country. Accordingly, I went to the Goregaon (West) police station to lodge an FIR, but they did not take my complaint. They said that I should ask the bank to refund my money and that thieves will not be traceable.`

Now they have apparently agreed to stamp a letter explaining her predicament. `The police has asked me to take this to the bank, but it won't help because banks respond only when they see an FIR. We have now spoken to Additional CP (West Zone Mumbai) Vishwas Nangare Patil, and he has assured us that he'll look into the matter.`