A farmer from a remote village in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras was in for a massive shock after he found that he had an unfathomable amount of money in his bank account. On April 25, while checking his balance on his phone, Ajit Kumar Singh found a 36-digit amount displayed in his account – Rs 1,00,13,56,00,00,01,39,54,21,00,23,56,00,00,01,39,542. The amount, impossible to comprehend even for financial analysts, is more than 10 times the fortune of the world's richest person. Elon Musk's net worth is a 14-digit figure.
The incident left Singh flabbergasted. Fearing he was the target of a financial scam, he rushed to the local police station and filed a complaint – prompting the Uttar Pradesh Police Cyber Cell to freeze his account and launch an investigation into the startling anomaly.
Started off with unauthorised deductions
The saga began just a day earlier on April 24, when Singh noticed an unauthorised debit of Rs 1,800 from his account. He suspected cyber fraud and promptly reported the transaction to the bank. A second withdrawal of Rs 1,400 followed later the same day. “I had just finished reporting the issue of Rs 1,800 being deducted from my account. And the next morning, I received a message saying my account had been credited with a huge sum. When I checked, I couldn’t even count the zeroes. My hands trembled,” Singh told News18.
But, within minutes, news of the massive balance spread across the village like wildfire. Friends and neighbours poured into his home to witness the bizarre banking miracle. Social media posts soon followed, calling Singh ‘India’s richest farmer’ and ‘Crorepati Kisan’.
Joy turns to fear
Initially, Singh’s family, including his wife and children, were overjoyed, dreaming of a life beyond their mud-walled home and acres of leased farmland. “For a moment, I thought God had finally heard our prayers,” said his wife tearfully. “But that joy quickly turned to fear. What if someone came to harm us thinking we really have all that money?” she added.
The family’s anxiety wasn’t misplaced. Hathras police officials confirmed that Singh had approached them to report the strange deposit. An FIR was not registered initially, but the matter was taken seriously due to the scale of the glitch.
Bank freezes account, cites technical glitch
The Airtel Payments Bank, upon being notified, initiated an internal inquiry. Preliminary findings indicated that the abnormal figure was the result of a technical error, possibly originating from a linked banking system managed through a Canara Bank node in Jammu and Kashmir. Singh’s account was immediately frozen as a precautionary measure.
“We have reason to believe this is a backend system glitch and not a case of fraud or money laundering,” officials with the bank told police.
Cyber cell joins investigation
The Hathras district cyber cell has also stepped in. “We have asked Singh to file a formal complaint with the cybercrime division. We are coordinating with bank officials to understand the full scope of this error,” said Ashok Kumar Singh, Additional SP Hathras.
Cyber experts believe the issue may stem from a glitch in numeric formatting within the transaction ledger, which could have mistakenly populated the account with excess zeroes and random digits.
In Singh’s village, however, crowds continue to pour in to meet Ajit Bhaiya, their overnight billionaire farmer. But Singh said that he would rather have his peace back. “I just want my old balance back and my account working. I don’t want to be rich like this. I just want my actual amount, which was enough to buy seeds and fertiliser for the coming season,” he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
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