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Here is what happened in this case. The SIM card hack had nothing to do with Aadhaar, but bank account may have. Follow the thread.
The victim in this case received a call from on the pretext of Mobile Aadhaar linking. He was asked to provide details of SIM card number.
The victim said, he does not know the number. The caller told him that they will SMS him the number, and to complete the activation, forward
the received SMS to airtel customer care number 121. There was nothing to suspect, as the victim was asked to send the number to airtel 121.
He sent the SMS to 121, and after a few minutes, his mobile number got deactivated.
How can this happen? It turns out that SIM cards were given out for free when someone purchases a mobile from e-commerce firms like Flipkart
Those SIM cards can be used to activate your existing SIM to 4G SIM cards. And the upgrade could be done through SMS.
It is this opportunity, that was used to hijack the SIM card. The victim was sent SIM card number of the free SIM that they received. 
Once the SMS confirmation is sent, the old SIM gets deactivated and new SIM, in the hands of fraudster, gets activated.
The moment, his SIM is activated, he gets access to your bank account. In this case, ICICI Bank. Then fund transfer becomes easy.
You won't even know come to know about this, unless you check your email constantly.
Now the serious stuff: Every airtel user can be tricked this way. Since they don't ask you to send SMS to a 3rd party number, chances
of getting tricked is very high. In the instant case, Mobile Aadhaar Linking was used as a pretext to initiate a conversation.
The incident happened about a week back. The victim is running pillar to post to get his mobile number and money back.
So far, he received no help from either airtel or ICICI Bank. Thanks to Mintu Jacob, Malayala Manorama for his inputs.
I need to find out if any other mobile operators offer similar facilities.
Update: The victim's bank balance was withdrawn using UPI.
