A senior army officer of West Champaran district has been duped of nearly Rs 1 lakh, including his last month's salary, in a cyber crime case rooted in Italy.

The officer, Captain Siddhant Shekhar, a resident of Bhagwatinagar in Bettiah, around 200km northwest of Patna, is posted in Akhnoor sector of Jammu and Kashmir. He got to know about the loss when he tried to book a railway ticket for his return journey to his Akhnoor base on Sunday through netbanking.

As his repeated attempts to book the ticket proved futile, Shekhar verified the balance in his bank account with the State Bank of India, Meerut branch, only to detect the crime. He was taken aback when he came to know that a sum of Rs 79,201 had been spent to foot the bills of restaurants and goods purchased at different shopping malls in Italy.

As the bank where Shekhar had his salary account was closed for it being Sunday, he contacted the branch manager on Monday to inform him about the incident. The bank officials reportedly told the officer that his ATM-cum-debit card might have been cloned to make the payment in foreign country.

"The incident happened with me a day after my salary was credited to my bank account. Though I had furnished details of my new address and provided a new mobile number to the branch after my transfer from Meerut to Akhnoor in May last year, the bank did not upload my new mobile number. Had the bank done it properly, the crime would have been detected at the first transaction," he rued.

But his trauma did not end here. When Shekhar visited the Bettiah Mufassil police station to lodge a formal complaint, cops on duty refused to entertain that. "The station house officer (SHO) expressed his helplessness to do so as neither the crime was committed nor the bank was located in the area, which comes under his jurisdiction. Then I decided to approach the superintendent of police, who, too, failed to help me on the same ground," Shekhar said.

The officials in Bettiah reportedly suggested him to visit the police's cyber crime cell in Patna, which has its jurisdiction over the entire state. "Since the racket is spread across to Italy, it is beyond our reach to do anything," said an official posted at the Bettiah Town police station.

Bettiah superintendent of police Saurabh Kumar Sah said Shekhar called on him around 1.30pm on Monday. "I have asked the Bettiah Town police station SHO, Vimlendu Kumar, to look into the matter," he told The Telegraph over phone from Bettiah.

The SP said the police would lodge an FIR after verifying the complainant's statement. "I have instructed the SHO to obtain a copy of the account statement from the nearest branch of the bank," he added.

An additional superintendent of police posted with the state cyber crime cell, said: "What has surprised the police officers is that the theft had taken place even after all defence personnel are given specially designed ATM cards," he added.