BPO employee alleges his mother was assaulted repeatedly by a private moneylender

75-year-old widow molested for Rs 4,000

BPO employee alleges his mother was assaulted repeatedly by a private moneylender

Private moneylenders had allegedly forced many farmers to commit suicide in UP and Maharashtra, but the case

of this 75-year-old widow from Uttar Pradesh is no less gruesome.

Prashant, 30, works as a senior customer care executive with a leading BPO, had borrowed the money for returning the loans he took from others for his marriage. Though the amount was paltry, the interest rate was very high and Prashant returned Rs 12,000 with interest in July 2009.

"However, Gupta threatened me with his contacts in the police and forced me to sign a paper in 2009 on which it was written that I had taken Rs 50,000 from him," Prashant alleged.

"Despite the fact that we returned the money, he and his two sons kept threatening us with dire consequences," Prashant alleged. "When we approached the police they refused to register a case. The cops were acting hand in glove with Sudesh," Prashant alleged.

The contract which Sudesh had allegedly made Prashant sign had the condition that the latter would pay him Rs 1 lakh in six months. "Sudesh even forced me to sign some blank cheques," Prashant claimed.

After this Sudesh used to frequently visit Prashant's house and allegedly threatened to kill the latter's two-year-old daughter. "It was during this time that he molested my mother. She was molested twice or thrice.

Sudesh's sons - Kapil, 28, and Praveen, 29 - helped his father in the heinous crime. I wrote several e-mails to Ghaziabad's Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) but did not get a reply. The last mail to the SSP was sent Wednesday morning," the BPO employee alleged.

After the cold response from the SSP's office, Prashant also approached the CBI and CID, but to no avail.
When MiD DAY contacted Ghaziabad SSP Raghuvir Lal, he expressed ignorance about the case. "I am not aware of any such case in my area. I don't get time to check my e-mails. If the complainant personally comes to meet me, we would definitely look into the matter and initiate a probe."

To his letter to the CBI, Gupta got a reply on July 9 which read: "The complaint has been received by the appropriate authority, which will process the communication for appropriate action. The CBI will inform you about the action at the earliest."
When MiD DAY contacted Sudesh Gupta, he said, "All the allegations are baseless. He borrowed money from me and is not returning it now."

Capital stats
In 2009, rape cases in Delhi have shown a decline of three per cent (452 against 466). As far as molestation cases were concerned, 532 cases were reported last year against 597 cases in 2008. Another characteristic was the uneven distribution of the cases of crime against women.
The police station-wise break-up shows that no case of rape was reported in 35 police stations while 225 (50 per cent) were reported from 35 police stations out of which 33 fall outside the Ring Road. 85 (50 per cent) police stations recorded 85 per cent of all rape cases.
Of the persons arrested on rape charges, 35 were relatives, 64 were friends, 212 were neighbours and 129 were other known persons. In only 12 (3 per cent) rape cases, the crime committed was by a person unknown to the victim. The crime graph for senior citizens, however, saw a slight increase with 17 elders found murdered as compared to 15 in 2008.

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