Loan sharks call AP Minister, ex-minister demanding money

A minister and a former minister, both hailing from SPS Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh, had a bitter experience on Friday when they received numerous calls ostensibly from a loan recovery agency, demanding that they repay money taken by some unknown person.

Based on the complaint of the minister, the Nellore police arrested four people for resorting to blackmail and harassing prominent persons.

An audio clip did the rounds in WhatsApp groups wherein a lady caller, claiming to be from a private bank, could be heard forcibly demanding that Nellore Urban MLA and former minister P Anil Kumar pay Rs 8 lakh owed by one Ashok Kumar.

''Are you Poluboyina Anil Kumar? Ashok Kumar gave your number saying you are his brother-in-law. He owes Rs 8 lakh to the bank. So, you need to pay us the money immediately,'' the lady caller demanded.

Anil Kumar, who till April served as Water Resources Minister in the Jagan Mohan Reddy Cabinet, tried to explain that he had no brother-in-law in the first place but the so-called bank employee insisted that he was named as such.

For several minutes, Anil Kumar tried to convince her he was in no way connected with the loan and also said he is an MLA.

Elsewhere, Agriculture Minister Kakani Govardhan Reddy also received similar calls.

''I was in an official programme, so my personal assistant answered the call. He was told about the loan but my PA told the caller that he never knew the person who took the loan. Yet, the person kept on calling using different numbers,'' Kakani said.

In all, the minister received 79 calls on Friday from the so-called loan recovery agents.

Interestingly, the borrower in this case too was named as Ashok Kumar. Fed up, he complained the issue to the district Superintendent of Police.

SP Ch Vijaya Rao immediately launched an investigation and, with the help of a technical team, traced the numbers to an agency in Chennai. Vijaya Rao told PTI over phone that the calls came from a loan recovery agency named Colman in Chennai.

''We immediately sent a team and arrested four persons from the agency. They were using different SIM cards and repeatedly been calling prominent persons, probably as a blackmail tactic to recover the loan,'' the SP pointed out.

He said a full-scale investigation was going on into the case even as the accused were remanded to judicial custody.

Some high-profile lawyers from Chennai came down to Nellore to represent the arrested persons, sources said. ''This indicates that an organised racket is operating,'' the sources noted.