3 min readAhmedabadApr 25, 2026 10:19 AM IST
IN A singular victory for rising public awareness about cyber crime and especially the bane of “digital arrest” fraud, a 50-year-old woman in Maninagar saved her septuagenarian neighbours from losing their life savings to cyber criminals on Thursday. ACP NK Vyas of J Division of Ahmedabad City Police felicitated Parul Desai for her role in preventing the crime.
Rita Pankaj Desai, 70 and her husband Pankaj Desai, 72, live in Maninagar. Their son lives in Vadodara while their daughter lives in Nashik so they call their parents everyday. However, on April 21, their daughter Purvi felt something was off about her mother, like she was worried about something but she didn’t tell her what was wrong.
Concerned, Purvi immediately called their neighbour Parul Desai and requested her to check on her parents. Parul Desai went to meet the septuagenarian couple. But once there, Rita didn’t allow her to stay in the house but immediately asked her to leave and closed the door. However, Parul, sensing that something was amiss about this behaviour, insisted on going into the house where she noticed that a video call was underway on the couple’s phone, said PI J P Jadeja of Maninagar police station.
He added, “Parulben apparently immediately realised that this was a case of “digital arrest” fraud. The neighbour explained to the couple that they were being scammed and then brought them to Maninagar police station. There, we learnt that the couple had been kept under “digital arrest” for 48 hours and had been deeply traumatised by the incident.”
Police said that if Parul Desai had not realised the scam on time and saved the elderly couple, they were going to withdraw Rs23 lakh from their Fixed Deposit (FD) and hand it over to the scammers.
Whatsapp Group for Senior Citizens
PI JP Jadeja said that since a large number of senior citizens live in the Maninagar area or WhatsApp group had been made in which police officials for outside it where is elderly couples could put in their questions and doubts which could be answered quickly by the police personnel. Senior citizens in Maninagar area can reach out to Inspector Jadeja (9099499799) to request to be added to the group.
