These farmers today held a demonstration with their clearance certificates and receipts, alleging that the bank officials had been harassing them for the dues already cleared by them.

They said that they had been meeting the concerned officials of the bank to show them that they had already repaid the loans with the interest amount.

It is learnt that nearly 800 farmers had opened their accounts in Centurian Bank of Punjab (CBoP), now merged with HDFC. The accounts were opened at a couple of branches at Jagraon and one branch at Ambala Cantonment. CBoP advanced loans worth crores of rupees to them. In the meanwhile, CBoP merged with HDFC bank.

The loans advanced to the farmers stood unrecovered in the records that CBoP handed over to HDFC.

Hence, HDFC Bank started issuing notices to the farmers, giving them dates to clear the dues. Farmers were threatened with legal action if they didn’t clear the payments.

They alleged that the Field Officer incharge of the section, Darshan Tayagi, had gone underground for the last many days, since they started receiving the notices. They alleged that he was responsible for manipulations in the records, due to which they were being victimised.

The farmers became violent when they found that entire staff had fled from the bank premises, and there was no one to address their grievances. However, the bank officials reappeared when the police team headed by SHO Dharamvir reached the bank.