Rajkot: A call centre set up to dupe farmers seeking loans against their land records was busted by Rajkot Rural Police, who raided an office on the eighth floor of Twin Star South Block on 150 Feet Ring Road and found 14 women employees working in separate rooms.Police said the office was being operated under the names “Balaji Loan” and “Geeta Charitable Trust”, with employees allegedly calling farmers and offering agricultural loans against land records. During the raid, police seized 14 mobile phones, a computer CPU, Wi-Fi router, diaries and books containing call details, land records from eight districts, four sata-khat (promise to sell property) agreements, 25 signed cheques, mostly blank, and around 400 sheets containing names and phone numbers.A separate raid at an office in Gota area of Ahmedabad, allegedly being used for a similar operation, led to the seizure of four SIM cards, three mobile phones, nine signed blank cheques, notebooks, diaries, land records and other documents.The police action followed a complaint by a farmer from Sardhar village in Paddhari taluka, who alleged that he was duped after approaching the accused for a loan against his agricultural land. A case was registered at Paddhari police station on Sept 22 against five people — Alpesh Donga, Akshit Akbari alias Happy Patel, Chandu Virdiya, Piyush Virdiya and Hiren Lunagariya, who allegedly acted as an intermediary.According to the complaint, the farmer approached the accused in 2022 after suffering losses of around Rs 41.5 lakh in his garage business. The accused allegedly offered him a loan against his land. Instead, they allegedly got a registered sale deed executed for around nine vighas of his agricultural land at the Paddhari sub-registrar’s office on Oct 22, 2022.The farmer was allegedly given Rs 5.5 lakh through RTGS and charged interest at 5% per month. Police said he paid Rs 3.3 lakh as interest over a year and later another Rs 9.86 lakh towards an alleged settlement of the principal and interest. He eventually paid around Rs 1.07 crore to get his land back, according to the complaint.Police said the accused targeted farmers through pamphlets and call-centre operations, offering loans of up to Rs 2 crore against their 7/12 land records. Callers allegedly posed as representatives of loan firms or charitable organisations and maintained records of prospective borrowers and their responses.Instead of conventional loan or mortgage agreements, the accused allegedly got farmers to execute sata-khat agreements and subsequently registered sale deeds, using the documents to gain control over their land.Police said the accused also operated under names including “Shri Ashtalakshmi Loan House” and “Patel Investment Point”. The seized documents are being examined to identify other victims and possible accomplices.
