Bally: An ATM of a nationalised bank in Bally, Howrah, allegedly dispensed a piece of brown paper after a customer keyed in Rs 6,000 on Tuesday night.

Bijay Pandey, the customer, said the piece of brown paper came out between two notes of Rs 2,000 at the Bank of India ATM. He said he had alerted the nearest branch of the bank and lodged a complaint on Wednesday.

"The manager of the Bank of India's Bally branch told me that an inquiry would be ordered. He could not tell me clearly when I would get my money back," Pandey said.

The bank could not be contacted for comments.

The incident happened at a time police are flooded with complaints of ATM fraud. Money has been fraudulently withdrawn from the accounts of at least 82 Calcuttans using cloned cards.

Pandey, who works at a private firm, visited the ATM kiosk at Bally Bazar around 8.50pm on Tuesday.

"I was carrying a debit card of Karnataka Bank and wanted to withdraw Rs 6,000. While counting the money I was shocked to see a piece of brown paper between two Rs 2,000 notes," he said.

Pandey showed the piece of paper to the guard of the kiosk and also to those who had queued up for cash.

He went to Bally police station, where he was advised to lodge a complaint with the bank first. He went to the Bank of India's Bally branch and met the manager.

"The manager said the bank had hired an agency to refill the ATMs.... He asked me to submit an application and said an inquiry would be held," Pandey said.

Banks outsource the job of refilling ATMs to agencies. "There is no regular check by our staff while an ATM is being refilled but we do conduct surprise checks.... In this case, the person who refilled the Bally ATM should be identified. The agency concerned knows when the ATM was last refilled and who did it," said an officer of a nationalised bank.