Chennai, Jul 11 (IANS): Tamil Nadu police are in pursuit of scamsters who have cheated former Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) T.S. Chairman Sreenivasan IRS (rtd) of Rs 10 lakh.

Sreenivasan got a call from a person requesting him to update his KYC details to keep his BSNL phone number active. The retired IRS officer, according to Kilpauk police, received a call on July 1 asking him to call a mobile number within 24 hours of the call to avoid deactivation of his BSNL SIM card.

Sreenivasan (85), called the phone number but there was no response the next day, a person named Manikumar called him and asked some questions and said that this was for updating some information. Later, Manikumar asked the octogenarian to pay Rs 10 for updating the data.

In his complaint, Sreenivasan said that immediately after that he received some text messages stating that his bank account was debited of Rs 10 lakh. He immediately lodged a complaint with the Kilpauk police and requested the police to block his bank accounts.

Police on investigation found that the money that was transferred from Sreenivasan's account was transferred to bank accounts in Kolkotta, Tiruvannamalai, and Surat. The cyber police team of the Chennai city police commissioner is probing the case.