The ‘call money-sex racket’ rocked the Andhra Pradesh Assembly on Thursday even as scores of victims of the extortionist practice — many of them women — thronged police stations across the State, six days after the scandal was unearthed.
The crackdown on call money lenders continued across the State as the government came under intense pressure to punish the guilty, said to include politicians and officials, with leaders of various parties under scrutiny.
In Vijayawada, the ‘epicentre’ of the racket, City Police have arrested 80 persons over the last couple of days and seized hundreds of documents and promissory notes from money lenders involved in the illegal business.
The >Assembly was disrupted as the Opposition YSR Congress insisted on a debate and Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao suspended two YSRC members for obstructing the proceedings.
What is 'call money'?
‘Call money’ refers to a form of private lending where loan is made available instantly at borrower’s doorstep following a phone call but at exorbitant rates, and the lender can demand repayment anytime over a call, failing which property and possessions are seized.
>Also read: Call Money is just the tip of the iceberg
On Wednesday the Andhra Pradesh cabinet decided to appoint a judicial commission to probe the illegal private lending scam.
“My husband is a retired employee of the APSRTC. We are dependent on his meagre pension of Rs. 1600. Of our debt of Rs. 5 lakh, we have paid Rs. 2 lakh towards interest alone. The money lender got our house registered in his name by coercion. Where will we go now? Our situation is so pathetic that I had to come from Hyderabad in a train like a thief without buying a ticket. We had to hide there (Hyderabad) to escape from our tormentors,” said an elderly woman, Jaya Lakshmi (named changed) from Kanur in Vijayawada City.
Several hapless women like her, who were robbed of their lifetime’s earnings and valuable properties, by call money lenders stood in queues at the Police Commissioner’s office here on Thursday to pour their grievances. They have apparently mustered enough courage to reveal the grim facts about extortion by the money-lenders, especially after Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu asked the victims of call money not to repay their dues. However, many are not sure whether justice will be meted to them.
Speaking for a group of victims belonging to Satyanarayanapuram area, T. Vijaya Lakshmi said the police should take the ‘seven sisters’, who were organisers of the call money racket for a long time, to task. “It is sad that they victimised fellow women with the help of a lawyer and their henchmen (‘bouncers’). Some of the women were forced into prostitution,” she said.
Many such women, some with their heads and faces covered in fear to avoid being recognised and attacked by money lenders and their henchmen, made a beeline to the Central Complaint Cell at the Police Commissioner’s office in Vijayawada. Police Commissioner Gautam Sawang, cancelled his leave and spent the day sat through the day sifting through the petitions. Those who reached his office in the evening were sent back with requests to come tomorrow.
House adjourned
As expected, the call money racket found its echo in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.
Proceedings in the House were disrupted as the Opposition YSR Congress insisted on a debate on the “call money cum sex racket” even as the Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao suspended two YSRC members from the House for obstructing the proceedings.
The YSRC members rushed to the Well of the House and pressed for allowing a debate on the “most heinous” crime perpetrated against women. The House witnessed charges and counter-charges as the ruling party members alleged that the seeds of the call money racket were sown during the tenure of former Chief Minister late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
Responding to the charge, the YSRC members alleged that the call money racket operators had the support of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and the TDP leadership. The TDP members countered the claim and said a majority of those arrested so far were affiliated to the main Opposition.
Meanwhile, a 53-year-old woman Waheeda Banu of Kadapa town died in the early hours of Thursday anguished at a financier allegedly grabbing her land.
