Vijayawada: The inquiry into call money cases in Vijayawada city has become a vexed one, with borrowers lodging complaints of seeking call money against even genuine money lenders who had charged a rate of interest of only Rs 2. In fact, a section of aggrieved money lenders are planning to approach the high court and question why punitive action was being taken against all lenders even when many of them had nothing to do with the call money racket.

According to reports, the city police is continuing to receive complaints from debtors on this account and they seem to be taking action against money lenders based only on complaints rather than facts. The police department went along with this notion when the call money-sexual harassment case came to light following the criticism of the Opposition parties. But this has resulted in several money lenders who had loaned money at a normal rate of interest facing problems now: Everybody has been tarred with the same brush.

A lady, Anne Srikrishna, said that her aunt had lent money to a woman seven years ago. “When we asked her to return the money with normal interest, she lodged a complaint against us under call money charges,” she said, worried that the police were only believing the complainant’s version without ascertaining the facts. Another person, Ravi, who used to lend money to people, charging `2 as interest, was also booked under a call money case when he asked his debtors to repay the money. A saloon owner, Appa Rao, said that his lender had never charged high interest, but now he had been booked wrongfully, and he, Appa Rao, had lost a genuine money lending resource in emergency situations.