Loan recovery agents harass minister\'s PA
The agents made numerous calls to the minister’s mobile phone in a very short time from different mobile numbers
TIRUPATI: Nellore district police arrested four loan recovery agents from Chennai on charges of abusing and harassing Cherukuri Sankaraiah, personal assistant of agriculture minister Kakani Govardhan Reddy.
The agents made numerous calls to the minister’s mobile phone in a very short time from different mobile numbers. This forced his PA Sankaraiah to pay a pending loan instalment of a defaulter, identified as P. Ashok Kumar, who had borrowed ₹8.50 lakh from a credit company.
However, Sankaraiah later lodged a complaint with Muthukuru Police, who booked a case under section 386, 507 r/w 109 IPC and sec 66 of IT Act-2000 against unknown loan recovery agents. During their investigation, police found that the agents are working for Collman services operating from Chennai with 300 tele-callers.
Acting upon instructions of SP Ch. Vijaya Rao, Muthukuru police laid a trap and nabbed four agents identified as Pesala Penchala Rao (38) of Podalakur in Nellore city, Madhuri Vasu (25), team leader of Collman services from Thiruverkadu in Chennai, Guru Prasad Reddy (36) of Varadaiahpalem in Tirupati district, and Sivanasan Mahendran (42) of Koraturu, Chennai.
The SP said on Friday: “As Ashok Kumar failed to repay the loan, loan recovery agency contacted persons on the contact list of the borrower's mobile phone. As part of it, they also rang up the number of minister Kakani Govardhan Reddy, which is on the contact list of Ashok Kumar”.
Reacting to the incident, Govardhan Reddy said he had received 79 calls from different numbers in a very short time. “Generally, I attend every call myself on my phone. But as I was busy with official programmes, my PA attended the calls. Loan recovery agents informed him that one Ashok has given my contact number as alternative number and demanded that we repay the loan.”
When the minister took up the issue with police, they asked him to pay the said amount to trap the loan recovery agents. Following the transaction, police managed to locate the recovery agency, which is being operated from Chennai.
It is learnt that former minister P. Anil Kumar Yadav too received numerous calls from the same agency, harassing him to pay loan instalments of Ashok Kumar.