Loan sharks in Sarlahi seizing land of victims

By Janarjan Khatri,Sarlahi (Nawalpur), Feb. 23: Sudamadevi Hazam Thakur of Ishwarpur Municipality-15 of Sarlahi district took a loan of Rs. 20,000 from Ramchandra Rai Yadav of the village in 2020.

After two years, Thakur of the Dalit family returned the principal amount of Rs. 20,000, but could not pay Rs. 5,000 in interest. 

She asked the lender Ramchandra to return the paper (Kapali Tamasuk) he had made while providing the loan to pay the interest after some time, but he did not return the paper as she failed to pay the interest.

Even though she visited Ramchandra’s home several times seeking the loan agreement paper, he did not return it. 

Ramchandra has filed a case in the Sarlahi district court against Thakur, who had taken Rs. 20,000 and paid the principal. But, instead of returning the paper, Ramchandra lodged a case citing that Thakur had taken a loan of Rs. 600,000 and still had to pay interest amount of Rs. 800,000. 

Similarly, Jawahar Sah of Bagmati Municipality-7, Rajghat, took out a loan of Rs. 1,150,000 from Rambabu Raya of Barathhawa Municipality keeping Sah’s 11-kattha land as collateral. However, making doing agreement in the Tamasuk, Raya made a loan paper citing that Sah had taken loan of Rs. 1.6 million instead of 1.1 million rupees. 

Taking advantage of such documents signed with Sah and Thakur, loan sharks file cases in court and force the debtors to sell their properties. 

Sah complained that his loan was not repaid even though he paid Rs. 1.7 million to Raya by selling another plot of land. 

“The moneylender took all the money from the sales of the land, but he has not returned the Tamasuk paper yet,” Sah said, referring to Rambabu Raya. 

“Even though I went to his house in Sitapur many times, I did not get the Tamasuk back, he also took the additional money that came from the sales of 16 katthas of land that he had secured,” complained Sah. 

Sah said that by filing a case by merely showing Kapali Tamasuk, loan shark Rambabu Raya had pushed him to the edge of suicide.  

Sah said that even though hundreds of people were cheated in this way, 28 people, including himself, filed a complaint against Rambabu Raya. Sudamadevi and Sah, who are victims of loan sharks, have been sitting in protest for the past three days in Sarlahi’s Nawalpur, demanding action against such loan sharks, return of their houses and land, and cancellation of fake documents (Tamasuk).  

They are staging sit-in protest by holding the photos of Shyamkrishna Sah, Rambabu Raya and Sanjay Sah Rauniyar, notoriously known as Shyam Pardeshi, and holding banners of the accused loan sharks. 

Among those implicated in wrongdoing by the victims, Shyam Pardeshi is currently in Gaur Jail while Rambabu Raya and others are absconding. 

Lately, after the victims started coming out, their injustice and atrocities are being made public along with the new names of such loan sharks. 

Rukmini Choudhary, coordinator of Sarlahi, Loan Shark Victims’ Struggle Committee, said that their sit-in protest would continue until Sanjay Sah Rauniyar, Rambabu Raya, Chunchun Thakur and other moneylenders were arrested and prosecuted. 

Coordinator Choudhary said that more than 700 loan shark victims had come in contact with Sarlahi’s struggle committee.

Mayor of Hariwan Municipality, Ramesh Budhathoki (Kamal), who came to show solidarity in the sit-in protest of the victims, said that the problem of loan sharks was becoming unbearable. 

“The house has been kept by all the creditors, they have not returned the loan documents even though the loans have been paid,” said Budhathoki, who is also the leader of the movement against loan sharks. “The victims are in unspeakable pain, but even after staging sit-in protest for three days, there has been no hearing from the government.”

Last time, 631 complaints were filed in Sarlahi District Administration Office on behalf of the victims. Chief District Officer of Sarlahi, Indradev Yadav, said that complaints were being received continuously from the victims.

He said that it was difficult to arrest the accused and prosecute them in absence of laws to detain them. 

“There is no law in this regard, the case of money laundering can be taken to court. But the problem can be resolved only through discussion and mutual understanding,” said CDO Yadav.