BENGALURU: Several victims of the I Monetary Advisory ponzi scheme staged a protest on Friday at Freedom Park demanding that the CBI’s investigation process be expedited and they get their money back.
The scam had affected more than 95,000 investors primarily from middle and lower-middle-class backgrounds. The scheme involved even political bigwigs like Congress leader R Roshan Baig.
However, many victims are uncertain of getting justice. Shamsiya Akbar (48), had invested a significant portion of her savings in order to pay for her son’s higher education. “I felt like my world crumbled when I heard about the scam. My son has missed a year of his education and I don’t know what will become of him now. I have very little hope of getting my money back,” she said. Aisha Rahman (29), had invested Rs 3 lakh of her savings in the company. “I want everyone associated with the scam to be jailed,” she said angrily.
Another investor, Mohammed Shariff (34), an HR executive, has a bad feeling that this was going to turn out like other ponzi schemes reported in the country. “I told my family many times that this was a bad idea, but they all wanted to get involved because religious leaders vouched for the scheme. Even though the Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Institutions Act (KPID) has been in place, we have noticed that in Ponzi schemes including Questnet and Hira Gold, investors rarely get back the money because it has many loopholes,” he said. The KPID Act excludes money contributed by partners of the firm, and IMA received money from Limited Liability Partnerships.
Sharif and a group of his colleagues and friends, have decided not to place their hope in any political party, or investigative agency as they believe this incident will be swept under the rug eventually.
“People from all backgrounds should be educated on the same so that this does not happen again. We are going to fight tooth and nail to resolve this matter, but we hope that people will exercise caution with their money,” added Sharif.
HC orders report on IMA scam
The Karnataka HC on Friday directed the ED to submit a report on the action it took in relation to the IMA scam. The division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreen-iwas Oka and Justice S R Kris-hna Kumar ask-ed all the invest-igating autho-rities to coor-dinate with each other. The HC directed the sta-te to allow the CBI to invoke the KPID Act against the accused.
