This is Part II of a three Part Series. Part I is available here. Part III is available here. See also: A Pictorial History of Manushi's Struggles or Vendors' Rights.
The local mafia indulging in the attacks belongs to the nearby village, Kotla Mubarakpur. The main figures are Basoya brothers (Babli, Mahipal, Pinky and Ajay) who run several legal and illegal businesses from the area, a Class IV employee of LNJP Hospital in Delhi, a notorious character named Chavanni, and a mysterious man named Sanjay who refuses to reveal his real identity and calls himself "Hindustani". They are able to mobilize other anti social elements of the area with ease since they are bound together through ties of kinship, crime and corruption. At the local level, both Congress and BJP leaders offer them support and patronage.
Twenty years ago Basoyas were among the lower rungs of Kotla Mubarakpur. The eldest son Mahipal began his life as a tempo driver. But over the last two decades through a mix of crime, extortion, robbery and illegal occupation of government land they have today amassed assets worth crores. Their new found wealth provides valuable insights into how those rising from the ranks of the poor fleece the poor with far greater ferocity and how those making money through illegal means inevitably gravitate towards politics and manage to find patrons cutting across party lines.
Apart from owning a flourishing transport business including a fleet of tempos and taxis, the illegal businesses run by Basoyas include the following:
- Extortionist money-lending, at 120% per year interest from local street vendors and other needy people. They use terror tactics to extract their loan repayment and have used this tactic to illegally take over stalls of several vendors.
- An unregistered Kameti (Chit Fund) business that acts as a supplement to their money lending business. Those in need of loans are induced to join the Kameti and lift money at a loss and thereafter made to pay hefty instalments of Rs 7000 to 10,000 per month. Those unable to pay are charged 120% interest on defaulted instalments. Many have fallen into the debt trap because of this Kameti racket. Most of the vendors are unable to make sense of their complex calculations since the whole business is conducted without any written receipts. Yogesh’s account given below provides a graphic account of how their money lending and Kameti business go hand in hand.
- Making and selling duplicate copies of pornographic and other CDs. They hold shows of blue films at night at their adda.
- Buying and selling stolen petrol and diesel. People have witnessed government and private company cars come and deliver petrol and diesel to them during odd hours of day and night. They sell this at slightly discounted price to local people.
- Selling illegally tapped power supply and ground water at exorbitant prices to shopkeepers and residents of the area.For example, they charge Rs.300/- per month per fish vendor and those selling cooked food for the supply of water from a bore pump they drilled illegally in the public park. Similarly, each vendor has to pay Rs 10-20 per day for stolen electricity.
- Extorting money from local vendors by running a "protection" racket charging Rs 50 to Rs 100 per day from each vendor who operates under their protection.
- In addition they own farm land and two multi storey buildings in Kotla Mubarakpur from which they get a rental income of over 1.25 lakh per month from working class tenants who are given little cubby-holes at high rents.
The Tempo Stand acts as their base and adda where anti social elements of the area gather daily for drinking liquor and creating terror by routine assaults and attacks on vulnerable individuals.
Unable to grab stalls through violence or blackmail, the local mafia, developed a new strategy. Due to the absence of credit facilities many vendors are under their debt. Even when they pay hefty instalments, the debt keeps mounting because the interest rate is astronomical. The money lending mafia began to surreptitiously take over the stalls of some of the indebted vendors by making them sign off their rights on Rs 100 denomination stamp paper.
A sample of their criminal ways of money making is provided by the account of Yogesh Kumar as to how they tried to grab hold of the allotted stall to him. In April 2003, Shiv Kumar-- one of the members of the local mafia led by Basoya brothers and Bhagat Singh, persuaded Yogesh into taking a loan of Rs 35,000 at an interest rate of Rs 120% per annum to invest in his business much against the wishes of Yogesh’s mother.
From May 2003 to December 2005 Yogesh paid Rs 3500 per month by way of interest for the loan of Rs 35,000. However, from January 2006 to March 2006 Yogesh was unable to pay the monthly interest because he was not left with enough money for running the household expenses. Yogesh was threatened that he should either pay a lump sum of Rs 50,000 or transfer his stall in Shiv Kumar’s name. When he resisted, the leader of this gang Mahipal Basoya insisted that Yogesh should join their "Kameti" (Chit Fund) group for 200,000 rupees, lift the money and pay off his debt to Shiv Kumar. Since joining the Kameti meant paying a hefty monthly instalment ranging from Rs 7000 to Rs 9000 per month which Yogesh could ill afford, he was very reluctant to do so but was threatened into accepting the deal.
In September 2006, they forced Yogesh to lift the Kameti at a loss of Rs 60,000. Shiv Kumar took away Rs 70,000 as his dues on the loan of Rs 35, 000 he had originally given Yogesh who was handed over merely Rs 30,000 in hand for a Kameti of Rs 200,000. Mahipal claimed the rest of the amount as penalty for joining six months late.
After that for one whole year Yogesh paid to Mahipal Basoya a monthly instalment ranging from Rs 7000 per month to Rs 8,000 for the 2 lakh Kameti totalling to over Rs. 80, 000. But this hefty instalment meant that he was left with no money whatsoever for his household expenditure. His wife had to work as a domestic help in order to supplement the household expenditure. This created a lot of tension in his family. Therefore, he stopped paying Kameti instalments. At this point Bhagat Singh and Basoya brothers forcibly took away his new scooter, which had been purchased on instalments by his father. In addition, they forced him to open a bank account and issue several blank cheques to them in order to black mail him further since bounced cheques can lead to a jail sentence.
Thus on a loan of Rs 35,000 Yogesh has already paid them more than Rs 3,63,000 by way of interest, including loss of his scooter. Yet by September 2007 they began claiming nearly 120, 000 rupees more in order to clear his dues or else transfer his stall to their names. He was told that if he refused their demand he would be beaten out of the market. This was not an empty threat. They had used exactly the same tactic for "purchasing" the stalls of several other members of the pilot project. Whoever dared resist was beaten up and driven out of the market. The pressure to sign away his stall in the name of Basoyas got so intimidating that in sheer panic Yogesh simply fled from the market and took shelter in a near by town with some distant relatives without informing his mother or wife regarding his whereabouts. After weeks of searching his mother Saroj Devi finally traced him down and brought him to Manushi for help. We helped him file a police complaint as well as a court case but despite our best efforts we have failed to get a simple F.I.R registered so far.
When these illegal transfers of stalls came to the knowledge of Manushi, we requested the Deputy Commissioner of Central Zone to seal the stalls, which had been ‘purchased’ illegally from vulnerable project members. Therefore, on January 4, 2007 eleven stalls were sealed by the MCD. This firm action aimed at the mafia unleashed a new and more deadly wave of violence and terror against Manushi.
The reason for the violence is understandable. Due to the transformation of Sewa Nagar from a slum-like hawker market to a neat and well-developed area, the market value of each stall and the combined value of the entire pilot project area is today worth several crores. Each stall already commands a black-market price of Rs.5 to 15 lakhs depending on its location. The local politicians and their mafia associates are not willing to allow an ordinary vendor to have usufruct rights over a property whose market value is rising fast given the short supply of commercial space in
These criminal elements join the bandwagon of whichever party comes to power. Therefore, they are able to get the patronage of political leaders of all hues who are all united by common interest--to ensure that the livelihood of vendors stays captive in their grip so that they do not dare resist paying bribes and do their bidding at election times.
Since April 30th, none of us can enter that area without risking our lives. I myself have thrice narrowly escaped being lynched to death by them. I have been threatened with gang rape and worse if I dare pursue the matter further. The most active among project members (Mehboob, Ishwar Lal, Shahid, Yaseen and Raj Kumar) who had played a vital role in organizing project members and bringing about civic discipline in the area were brutally beaten up in a series of violent incidents starting April 19th, and driven out of the market. They were warned not to dare enter the market or else they would face death. Other members are also threatened daily, roughed up, terrorized, fleeced and forced to sign all kinds of bogus documents and petitions against the project without even being shown the text. What is worst, after each incident of assault, I and other members of Manushi have patently bogus criminal cases filed against us subjecting us to soul-destroying harassment.
Since this group of anti social elements posed a serious threat to the survival of the pilot project, following numerous complaints by project members regarding the criminal acts of the local mafia, the Deputy Commissioner ordered the removal of the Tempo Stand in very categorical terms as recorded in the Minutes of the MCD meeting held on June 6, 2007:
"It was decided that since the Tempo Stand has become the hub for anti social elements out to forcibly takeover the project property and stalls, determined action should be taken to get the unauthorized Tempo parking and the illegally constructed office of the Basoya Tempo Stand removed from the project area. After getting it removed with police protection, the local police should be informed that the Basoya Tempo Stand should not be allowed to reoccupy space in the Sewa Nagar area."
Following this decision two clearance operations were carried out with police support. But within the same hour the tempos would come back to the same spot near the park plaza. The Deputy Commissioner then wrote a long letter to the Police Commissioner detailing why it was important to ensure permanent removal of the Tempo Stand from Sewa Nagar. He requested the Police Commissioner to:
a) "Book and charge sheet cases against those who have indulged in violence against law-abiding vendors and office bearers and staff of Manushi Sangathan for performing legitimate functions under the MCD project. The charge sheets should include attempts to illegally take over MCD property, threats, blackmail, extortion and coercion against vendors and Manushi Sangathan (for which ample evidence has been provided to Kotla police station) and for booking false cases against Manushi Sangathan with a view to harassing and coercing the organization into abandoning the project.
b) Enforce the permanent removal of the unauthorized tempo and private taxi stand operated by Basoya brothers whose removal has been twice executed by the MCD.
However, since the police was extremely reluctant to take determined action against the gangsters, their attacks and threats continued unabated. Therefore, we had to seek the intervention of the Lt Governor of
[Written by Madhu Purnima Kishwar. Originally published here]
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