Kolkata Police registers Zero FIRs in ₹32 lakh cybercrime cases
Times of India | 18 July 2026
Kolkata: Police have started lodging zero FIRs in cyber fraud cases to allow quick freezing of the money trail.
In a case where a Cossipore resident filed a complaint, Baguiati police filed Zero FIR under relevant sections of BNS. The victim said he befriended the accused, identified as Kallol Chakraborty, on social media, and was persuaded to invest in the stock market with promises of massive returns. The victim handed over Rs 16,20,000 between May and October 2022. Although the accused sent an email in Feb 2023 acknowledging the outstanding liabilities and promising a payout by April, he subsequently turned off his phone and absconded.
In another case involving the same accused, the victim lodged a complaint saying Chakraborty befriended him in 2022 and convinced him to transfer Rs 15,50,000 through various bank transfers and UPI transactions between June 30 and Aug 18, 2022. The victim realised he was duped when the accused cut off contact and went into hiding. This led to the registration of the second Zero FIR.
The Cossipore Police Station has officially taken over the investigation of the two share market investment scams from the Baguiati Police Station.
This comes in the backdrop of Kolkata Police commissioner Ajay Nand and senior Bengal Police officers ordering the mandatory registration of Zero FIRs to assist distressed victims without jurisdictional delays.
The total monetary loss across both cases stands at nearly Rs 32 lakh. Because the place of occurrence for both crimes fell under Cossipore’s jurisdiction, the Baguiati police initially registered them as Zero FIRs on July 4 before formally seeking their transfer through the Joint Commissioner of Police (Headquarters) at Lalbazar on July 15.
Senior police officials stated that the Zero FIR mechanism can act as a potential game-changer for financial cybercrimes, where time is an essential factor.