The news story that “Unity Life International MD, director nabbed” published in THT has enhanced the image of the police department which has been able to arrest the frauds though it took a long time. The fraud duo had been running a fish business in India duping hundreds of innocent Nepalis of millions of rupees over the years. They had run the Unity Life International in a pyramid style in which everybody was supposed to get financial benefit without doing any real business. They were arrested after issuing a Red Corner notice. It is a total shame on the part of the government that it allowed these thugs to run such a racket. They had been collecting deposits from the people as if they were given permission to run a financial institution as well as hospitals in rural areas. They would not have been able to run this kind of racketing had the government taken legal action against them before the situation turned from bad to worse. Everybody knows nobody can collect the people’s deposits without taking due permission from the concerned agencies.

Everybody, including the President, high-profile politicians, policy-makers and finance experts knew that the duo had been running this duping business. But they were least bothered about forcing them to shut down the biggest ever financial scandal. Some of them even helped promote such business and posed for photographs with the racketeers. The Nepal Rastra Bank and Ministry of Finance should have taken legal action against them for running this illegal business before they ran away with millions of rupees of the ordinary people. One of the biggest questions is how they could manage to flee the country with such a huge amount of money?

So, not only the brother duo but the government also swindled the people as the latter did not take any action against them. The media had been raising serious concerns over the dubious business of the ULI officials. But the government turned a deaf ear to the media’s calls for taking timely action against them who brought hundreds of unsuspecting people or depositors to the streets. They may be put behind bars for some years on charges of fraud. But the question is, will they refund the money that they had collected from the people?

Arjun Prasad,  via e-mail

Apropos of the news story “Unity Life International MD, director nabbed” (THT, Aug. 1, Page 1), not too long ago Nepali citizens from the far-flung regions like Parbat and Okhaldhunga, to name just two, were thought of as simple, innocent, illiterate, repressed, oppressed and exploited souls. No longer. Today, they have turned the tables completely. Not only are the people from these and other hinterlands driving the nation’s politics, bureaucracy, business and buses, they are also way ahead in dubious criminal activities and various scams reported in yet another news story “Woman arrested for banking fraud” (THT, Aug. 3, Page 3) They are fully empowered now.

J. Talchabhadell, Bhaktapur