ash cut, complain investors

April 24: Several investors in Durgapur today complained that Rose Valley, a funds collection company, was deducting a portion of the principal while giving out cheques to them. Many depositors refused to accept the cheques because of this today. Private company employee Nilav Mandal said he had deposited Rs 1 lakh in 2010 in a hotel scheme that had promised to double the amount in five years. “But I got back Rs 81,000 today. The company has deducted almost 20 per cent of the principal,” he said. Branch manager Shiladitya Singh said: “We had to deduct a small portion from the principal amount as we had paid commission to agents. We also have some official expenses. We have invested the money elsewhere and cannot withdraw it in such a short span of time.” An investor with another private funds collection company, however, said the firm had refused to return him the Rs 25,000 he had invested. Nuruddin Mandal, a farmer in Bankura’s Borjora who had invested in a scheme run by Vibgyor Allied Infrastructure Ltd said: “I had invested Rs 25,000 in May last year and the company had said it would pay me Rs 37,500 after three years. I had gone to Vibgyor’s Calcutta and Durgapur offices but the employees refused to speak to me. The agent in my village has fled. I don’t know what will happen to my money.” A Vibgyor spokesperson said there may have been a “miscommunication” and investors who want their principal back would be refunded after two days. In Malda, around 500 depositors and agents ransacked two under-construction buildings of the Saradha Group in Englishbazar. Police sources said the crowd first attacked Amrapali housing complex at Lakshmipur along the Malda-Manikchak state highway, 5km from Malda town. “The mob broke down the iron gate of the 10-bigha plot and ransacked the site office. The mob broke all the furniture and made a bonfire of all the papers in the office ,” a source in the Englishbazar police station said. The mob then went to the Saradha World School and Academy site, a kilometre away from the housing complex, and smashed the windowpanes of an office room on the campus. The people also broke the lock of the office and took away furniture, fans and lights. Sources said the school was coming up on a 20-bigha plot and construction had begun in October last year. Agent Sisir Sarkar said Saradha Group had bought over 35 bighas in Englishbazar area. “They had bought the land to construct housing complexes, schools and a food processing plant in Susthani. The land is worth several crores. We joined the company thinking it had the blessings of the Trinamul government. Now we are living in constant fear and our houses are being attacked. We want the government to sell the property and return the money,” Sarkar said. Some of the agents said a person called Debashis Debsharma used to look after Saradha’s operations in north Bengal.