By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram
The State Bank of Travancore (SBT), which handles the highest volume of Non-Resident Indian (NRI) remittances among Kerala banks, has stopped accepting e-mail instructions for money transfers after detecting frauds.
“Frauds in transfer of money, based on e-mails, have been on the rise recently. In order to protect the depositors’ money and to prevent frauds, the facility of transfer of funds based on e-mail instructions from the customers has been stopped henceforth,” the bank said yesterday.
The bank attracted 40.58% or Rs254.45bn of the total deposits from overseas Indians last fiscal year.
“We decided to stop it once and for all after detecting cases of fraud by many banks. This has been happening frequently, especially on NRI accounts. You cannot always call the customers sitting abroad and confirm if the request was genuine,” said an official.
Two convicts escape from Kerala jail
Two convicts escaped from the high security central prison in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, police said. Their escape was discovered early yesterday morning when jail officials found their cell open and dummies on their beds. The escapees were Ripper Jayanandan, who was serving a life term for multiple murders, and vehicle thief Prakasan. Jayanandan had been caught earlier while trying to escape from a prison in Kannur and from another jail in Thrissur. Alexander Jacob, director general of police said that the two men used poles from the prison’s kitchen garden to scale the 20ft-high wall. “An alert has been sounded across the state and their pictures have been flashed. A team has been formed to arrest them,” Jacob said.
Priyanka Chopra’s father dies in Mumbai
Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra’s father Ashok Chopra died yesterday at the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai. “He passed away at 12.30pm. He was undergoing cancer treatment,” hospital official Ram Narain said. He was cremated in the evening at the Oshiwara crematorium. Many Bollywood celebrities including Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Parineeti Chopra, Karan Johar, Madhur Bhandarkar, Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Punit Malhotra, Anurag Basu, Ramesh Taurani, Arjan Bajwa attended the cremation. Priyanka had cancelled all her shoots and was by his side for the last few days. Chopra, a doctor, had retired from the Indian army in 1997 as a lieutenant colonel. Chopra is survived by his wife Madhu, also a former army doctor, daughter Priyanka and son Siddharth.