Two officials of the horticulture department were arrested on Monday for their alleged involvement in fraudulent release of loans to two farmers through Kisan Credit Card (KCC) and facilitating the middlemen to dupe the innocent farmers of the Bastar region. Bastar City Superintendent of Police Hemsagar Sidar informed that two officials Upendra Choudhari and R.K. Mishra were arrested following the arrest of two middlemen.
With the arrest of these two a total of four persons have been arrested in connection with the famers’ duping case, the official said.
Notable, after legal assistance the farmers lodged complaints against seven of the accused. Of them two middlemen Balram Chawda and Raghu Sethia were already arrested a couple of days ago. Incidents of duping illiterate farmers by middlemen have come to the fore in the Bastar region recently when two of the farmers Tularam Maurya and Sukhdas of the region were arrested in connection with a cheque-bounce case.
Later, it was found that the touts in nexus with horticulture department officials and bank officials had duped the innocent farmers. The modus operandi in these cases was to take the loan books and thumb impression of farmers on documents to get the sanctioned amount from the bank. Since the farmers are illiterate they often don’t know the exact amount of the sanctioned loan. The arrest triggered protest over the “injustice” done to the innocent farmers who have been duped. The farmers were, however, released on bail later by a lower court after a preliminary investigation found they were innocent.