Daijiworld Media Network – Puttur (SP)

Puttur, Nov 14: Reportedly, a private financier from Bettampady village in the taluk, popularly known as Babanna, has decamped with over two crore rupees that he collected from the people by offering high rates of interest.

Babanna, originally from Kerala, had initially started working as a tailor in the said village. He never had a board, but earned the confidence of the people by giving small loans and paying interest promptly on deposits collected. It is said, he told the people that he conducted his business over mobile phone and lent huge sums of money to big companies at exorbitant rates of interest. He also managed chit funds, and promptly paid chit installments due from members who had failed to pay them, on his own. Thus, he had earned a reputation for being a man of integrity, who is committed to saving the face and protecting the dignity of the people in trouble.

Reportedly, he offered rates of interest ranging from 19% per annum to 120%! As he paid interest promptly, his became popular and people from different places came to him to deposit money. His communication skills were very good. After he suddenly disappeared from the village along with wife and kids last week, hundreds of people are claiming that they had made huge deposits with him. No one has so far filed a police complaint, it is learnt, perhaps because they do not have any official record about their transactions, the money may be unaccounted, or because of the fact that they do not have an inkling about Babanna’s native place, whereabouts, etc.

He shifted to this place after marrying a woman from the region. It is learnt that a person had deposited Rs 75,000 with him the day on which he staged the act of disappearance. In the meanwhile, some of those who lost heavily have been trying to put together a list of people who had lent money to him. As he did not have his name even in the voters list, nor a ration card, and also as no one knows from where he came, catching hold of him might prove to be a distant dream.