Piplia Mandi (Madhya Pradesh): Outrage erupted after a video surfaced online showing a finance company forcefully evicting a priest and his bedridden, 100-year-old father from their home over a loan dispute in Bhilyakhedi village, Piplia Mandi.

Govinddas Bairagi, the priest of the Ram temple in the village, had taken a Rs 3 lakh loan from a local finance company in 2015 to build a house. While he acknowledges missing instalments due to personal hardships, including his wife’s illness and his father’s deteriorating health, the eviction’s brutality has sparked widespread condemnation.

The video, widely shared on social media, shows finance company employees and police officers carrying the elderly man out on his bed as they vacate the house. Bairagi claims he pleaded with them to consider his situation and offered to resume payments, but his pleas were ignored.

Notices were sent repeatedly: Finance Company manager

The collection manager of a company, Deepak Singh Rajawat, has stated that notices were repeatedly given to priest Govind Das to deposit his instalments, but he failed to do so. Currently, 50 instalments are still pending. As a result, a case was filed against him in the Mandsaur court. However, the priest was not present during the proceedings. This action was taken following the court order.

Farmer leader Shyamlal Jokchand accused “fake finance companies” of exploiting vulnerable borrowers with unfair loan terms and aggressive recovery tactics. He urged the government to implement stricter regulations to protect debtors from predatory practices.