Maravi

Police arrest MMD financier, Patel, for assault

Police arrest MMD financier, Patel, for assault
By George Chellah
Fri 11 June 2010, 07:50 CAT

Police in Lusaka have arrested Time Truck managing director Umesh Patel for allegedly assaulting his former employee Abraham Chilanda. Patel, who is one of the financiers to the Rupiah Banda led MMD, was expected to appear in court yesterday along with two other accused persons.

Police sources revealed that Patel is alleged to have assaulted Chilanda on May 1, 2010 in a bid to recover an outstanding loan from him. Chilinda once worked for Patel’s Time Truck as an auto electrician.

“The information is that Abraham Chilanda obtained a loan of K4 million from Time Truck in 2007 and he was to pay back through monthly deductions of K400,000,” the source said.

“But in May 2009, Abraham was fired without any benefits. So this guy Abraham started doing private jobs. And on the material day, he was doing a private job at Tata Transport, which is just next to Time Truck in the Makeni area.”

The police source said as Chilanda was busy doing some work at Tata Transport, he was approached by his former manager at Time Truck identified only as Chola.

Chola is reported to have said to Chilanda that he had taken the letter to him indicating the balance from his loan but Chilanda said the loan, as far as he was concerned, had been cleared already.

The source said as Chilanda was reading the letter and explaining that he had cleared the loan, Umesh Patel appeared on the scene and asked if he was still refusing to pay the outstanding loan amount.

“Without cause, this Patel gave Abraham three blows or punches on his mouth and he started to bleed heavily and he fell to the ground,” the source said. “Some of his workers also joined in the scuffle, beating up Abraham. After that, this Patel locked up Abraham in a garage opposite Castle Police Post.”

However, Patel – in a warn and caution statement to the police recorded on May 26, 2010 – denied ever assaulting Chilanda. He said he wanted to rescue his human resources manager Chola from Chilanda who was being violent against him for demanding the loan balance. He said in the midst of the scuffle which later ensued, Chilinda was chased and in the process he jumped over a high wall fence.

Patel suspected that Chilinda could have sustained the injuries he was trying to attribute to him from his act of jumping over a high wall fence.

Last month, Patel was reported to have threatened management at Lafarge if he was not given business on account that he is very close to President Rupiah Banda.

He threatened to engineer the deportation of some managers at Lafarge using his connections with State House if he did not receive business from the cement manufacturing company. However, Patel dismissed this as nonsense.

“Remember this is the same Patel you reported about recently boasting that he is one of the financiers of the MMD and is very close to President Banda whom he even gave K48 million as a donation to the MMD,” the police source said. “We hope the law will be allowed to take its course without any interference because this Patel likes dropping the President’s name anyhow.”

Labels: MMD, UMESH PATEL

posted by MrK @ 4:00 PM