Imagine you discover one morning that someone stole your entire life’s savings. You will be devastated or probably die of shock. This horror was played out to a retired college principal and his family in Guwahati, Assam, when a ‘crook’ bank manager emptied his wife’s savings account, where they had parked their life’s savings for retirement, and fled the city.

When Harekrishna Sarma (then 88) learned that Rs 47.25 lakh had been stolen from his wife Gita’s bank account during a visit to their Malegaon bank branch in April 2021, he almost collapsed on the floor. His eldest son, who was with him, helped him up and brought him home. Then, a series of dramatic events began unfolding in his life, some of which he anticipated, and some were surprises, whose memory, even now, haunts him and brings tears to his eyes.

Amiyo Kumar Deb, then branch manager of Induslnd Bank, used to sell mutual funds to the Sarma family. The cunning crook befriended them in a malicious plot and carefully planned to steal their money. So, he volunteered to help them with other banking needs personally. His visits to their Malegaon house under the pretext of assisting them enabled him to win their trust.

Sarma, who retired from Shuwalkuchi College in 1995, says, “He (Deb) used to sell us good mutual fund schemes, was polite and offered help in our banking needs voluntarily, and that’s how we began to trust him. We also had a little money in a joint account besides my wife’s savings account at the same Malegaon bank branch. And he insisted us to transfer my retirement savings to her account as she was not earning.”

Harekrishna Sarma

The Laying of Trap

For several months before the Covid-19 pandemic, the wolf in sheep’s clothing wooed the Sarmas, sometimes helping them open fixed deposits and mutual funds and sometimes offering to update their bank passbooks. At the time, they did not suspect anything amiss, and they used to get proper receipts for FDs and mutual fund purchases from him. Then things dramatically changed during Covid in 2020, when the government imposed restrictions on public gatherings, and banks discouraged senior citizens from visiting their branches for regular services.

The crook then saw an opportunity and offered to manage their banking needs personally from their home, like paying premiums for mutual funds and fixed deposits, which the Sarmas had opened in the name of their grandchildren. As their trust developed, he managed to take blank cheques from them to pay mutual fund premiums or purchase new ones. He would convince them that he would look for the best schemes and put the company names and the amount on the cheques himself when he finds them.

At this point, Sarma didn’t have the slightest clue of his malicious intent. “Because of my age, I don’t clearly remember the dates when he took the cheques, but it’s definitely on different days. He addressed me as uncle and used to say that I am like his father,” he says. “I trusted him. If I can’t trust a bank manager, how can I keep money in the bank?” he reasons.

When Sarma would ask him about the receipts, he would always find an excuse, and he never suspected him. The octogenarian even visited the branch once, but he told him that he would make a folder of all the investments and bring it to him, cautioning him that he may forget because of his old age, and it will help him keep track of them, which he never did.

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The Fraud Discovery

These back-and-forth requests and denials for receipts went on. When Sarma called him on the phone, the crook would tell him he would update him on the investments due for maturity when they would meet. Then, one day, he visited Sarma at his home to inform him about a few FDs maturing and the opening of two more as per Sarma’s wish and his visit to see his sick mother. He told him that he would return to his job soon. But weeks passed after that visit, and no communication from him came. Then, sometime in late April, upon an unscheduled visit to the bank branch, Sarma learned that he had been absconding. He didn’t believe at first that he could be scammed, but as his curiosity grew, he checked the account, only to discover that it had been closed and the money was gone. The bank records showed the criminal had withdrawn the money in several instalments between September 2020 and April 2021, and the last one was just before he left for home. Sarma didn’t get any phone or email alerts about the transactions.

From then on, the Sarmas’ life turned upside down. As the old couple processed the incident, fear and grief filled them; the loss haunted them everywhere. They couldn’t sleep at night and would wake up in the dead hours, shocked, helpless, sobbing, and surrendering to their fate.

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The Fight Back

Help came swiftly. After Sarma complained to the bank and the police, the local media picked up the news quickly. His story was broadcast on television and printed in leading Assam newspapers, generating pressure on the authorities to arrest the absconding criminal. Sarma also wrote a letter to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, and he received a positive response. The CM directed the commissioner of police to oversee the case personally.

Meanwhile, Sarma requested the bank to return his stolen money. The bank, at first, had put the onus on him as the cash was siphoned out using his signed cheques and argued that it was not entirely its fault. Sarma then approached the bank ombudsman, and the enquiries and interviews followed for weeks. Despite police efforts to catch the criminal at his supposed home address in Tripura, they came up empty-handed. The search is still on. Meanwhile, the bank terminated a few staffers and changed the leadership at the branch after an internal inquiry into the incident.

Towards the end of 2021, the bank finally returned the money, although the criminal was nowhere to be found. It came as a huge relief, ending their months of trauma, during which Sarma lost over 10 kg, he says. The experience left the couple shaken, traumatised, and emotionally vulnerable. Their four sons and their families, two of whom live in the US, were with them throughout the crisis for support. Sarma’s eyes welled as he spoke of his wife Gita’s support to him all these years and during their worst crisis with the stolen money.

In June 2022, a few months after they got back the money, his wife of over 50 years passed away in her hospital bed after a brief illness.

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Lessons Learned: Don’t Let Your Guard Down

With no moral compass to guide them or respect for the law, criminals go to any length to commit a crime. The couple’s trust, respect and empathy for the person meant nothing to him; instead, it led them to so much trouble. Sarma could have avoided the crisis if he had consulted other family members before making the financial transactions. Sarma’s agonising experience and loss show that senior citizens must not trust anyone willing to undermine the established banking practices and go out of the way to help, especially in financial matters; it should be a warning sign that the person may not be genuine. Banking channels and processes are created with the customer’s safety in mind, which even bank officials, not even the bank manager, can avoid. By following these guidelines, senior citizens can prevent many troubles from arising.