For the first time following an amendment in the money lenders act in September 2020, Madhya Pradesh police raided unregistered lenders leading to arrest of eight persons involved in the practice, and recovered ₹55 lakh in cash apart from several financial and identity documents of borrowers trapped in their vicious net, police said.
The accused including Mohammad Afzal, Brijkishore Mishra, Yogendra Sharma, Oman Sahu, Lateef, Suresh Gautam, Ajay Singh and Manoj Gupta were arrested under Section 420 (fraud) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under relevant sections of the Madhya Pradesh Moneylenders (Amendment) Act, 2020, which amended an 86-year old law made in 1934.
The amendments limit the interest chargeable by money lenders to the rate notified by the state government from time to time and makes any loan advanced by an unregistered moneylender unrecoverable in any court of law unless at the time of filing the suit, the moneylender held an effective registration and the court is satisfied that the loans advanced were in compliance with the act.
The raids conducted by 10 teams, comprising 115 police personnel, made the arrests from the Koyalanchal area, freeing more than 500 employees of South Eastern Coal field Limited in Anuppur district from the clutches of illegal money lenders following decades of exploitation, said Akhil Patel, superintendent of police Anuppur.
Patel added that the eight money lenders were arrested on charges of blackmailing, harassment and extortion, also leading to the recovery ₹55 lakh in cash, over 200 cheque books, 710 blank cheques, 225 passbooks, 73 ATM cards, 50 affidavits, more than 100 mark-sheets and Aadhaar cards, more than 500 blank papers with signatures and even property documents of over 1,000 borrowers, revealing the extent of their exploitative illegal practice.
{{/usCountry}}Patel added that the eight money lenders were arrested on charges of blackmailing, harassment and extortion, also leading to the recovery ₹55 lakh in cash, over 200 cheque books, 710 blank cheques, 225 passbooks, 73 ATM cards, 50 affidavits, more than 100 mark-sheets and Aadhaar cards, more than 500 blank papers with signatures and even property documents of over 1,000 borrowers, revealing the extent of their exploitative illegal practice.
{{/usCountry}}According to the police, the money lenders used to target hapless migrant labourers working at South Eastern Coal field Limited.
“They used to loan money at 10-15% interest rate by taking signatures of labourers on blank papers. After some years, the money lenders used to take their ATMs, passbooks, Aadhar Cards, cheque books and legal papers of property. The money lenders even used to withdraw salaries from their bank accounts and also take bank loans using seized documents of debt-ridden borrowers,” said a police officer, who didn’t wish to be named.
A police officer involved in investigations against these money lenders said they were hearing complaints about a network of illegal money lenders harassing employees of SECL for a long time but the victims shied away from registering complaints since the lenders possessed all their important documents.
Patel said the area police were not told about identities of people to be raided since the money lenders were reported to have local support. “They [local police] were only told when we reached their homes,” he said.