Shillong, Jan 9: A major racket of duping villagers and farmers, especially women, in Ri Bhoi has come to the fore after several victims filed complaint petitions through advocate Tilok Dasgupta before the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate.
The petitions have been filed against Lassing Kharkylliang of Ri Bhoi’s Sohliya village. Kharkylliang, the prime accused who is known among locals as a church elder, duped at least 50 villagers since 2019. He would lure his victims into buying cars of various models, such as Maruti Alto 800 and Bolero pick-up vans, by availing of loans from Cholamandalam, a financing company headquartered in Chennai.
The other co-accused in the case include the Nongpoh branch head of Cholamandalam, authorised Maruti car dealers in Meghalaya, M/s. Tata Motors, an industrial and firm equipment company, an authorised dealer of Mahindra & Mahindra vehicles, Guwahati, nationalised and private insurance and financing companies and the office of the District Transport Officer, Ri Bhoi.
Kharkylliang’s modus operandi would be to approach his victim as a church elder and gradually convince them to buy a new vehicle. He would pose as an authorised agent or sales promotion officer of the financing company or the other entities named as co-accused.
Once the person agreed to buy the vehicle of his or her preference, Kharkylliang would simultaneously offer certain concessions — like waiving of down payment and the first three EMIs — on behalf of the said financing company. If the victim already owned a car, he would take that away on the pretext of adjusting the resale value against the down payment. However, after a few days, the victims were asked to pay an amount ranging between Rs 2.5- 4.4 lakh on the ground that the resale value was not enough to cover the down payment.
While this continued in 2019, the following year when the pandemic struck, Kharkylliang convinced his victims to not visit the office of the financial company or the car dealer amid lockdown and promised them that their vehicles would be delivered on time. All formalities, including collection of pertinent documents, for the loan, would be done on the doorstep in the presence of Kharkylliang and officials from the financial company. The victims would be assured that once the loan was sanctioned, their vehicles would be delivered.
“Many of these victims were innocent villagers, mostly women, who had little or no knowledge of the working procedures of financial companies. They trusted the prime accused because he was a church elder. In some cases, Kharkylliang would ask one member of the family to convince more relatives to buy cars in order to get higher concessions. Of the over 50 victims, only a few have come forward to file the petitions,” said advocate Dasgupta.
While the vehicles never arrived, the victims were further harassed by officials of the financial company who threatened them with legal action if they did not pay the EMIs. Meanwhile, Kharkylliang would be elusive and his mobile phone would be switched off. Those victims who were able to contact him were told that their vehicles were either in transit or out of stock.
“While the said borrowers would be counting the days to receive their dream cars, the officials of Cholamandalam would make surprise visits to the victims’ houses and ask them to repay the entire loan amount in one go by violating the loan agreement, which mandated that the loan should be repaid in 59 instalments,” the advocate added.
Though some aggrieved persons filed FIRs and the Nongpoh police submitted a status report on the investigation, no breakthrough has been made to date and the prime accused is still at large.
“The woes of the victims have been aggravated following the issuance of legal and arbitration notices being dashed off by the Cholamandalam Financing Company to attend proceedings in Assam and Maharashtra,” Dasgupta said.
