Page 97 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

We were facing such a verbattle for the first time in life. A life threat!
The guard of the branch disclosed that he was a dropout of a law college
and had already created such scenes with all the three earlier branch
managers since inception of the branch as well as at local post office. He
knows how to evade after leaving no evidence. Even I got scared for life
as we had to file a suit against him for which bank had already directed
us. He might harm us particularly the Branch Manager and the Loan
Officer who were mainly engaged in recovery process and were always
in the forefront in the field.

We closed the branch and decided to report the matter to the
Superintendent of Police. He heard us and directed us to register a case
of threat to life with the police station of the area. We went there and
requested the Station House Officer (SHO) for our protection from the
miscreant, and requested that a police guard should accompany us to
the branch where our cash was lying on counter as we had rushed for
protection to the police station.

They recorded our statement in a daily diary and assured of action against
him the next day. FIR would then be written after preliminary
investigation. They assured us that the miscreant was not such a hardened
criminal to murder someone and deputed one policeman to go with us
to lock our branch premises. This had a very good impact on the public
in the area that we could take befitting action against the miscreant. He
had created such scenes three times before with the earlier Managers
but none reported the matter to police and let the things go.

This report at the police station was deemed necessary by me to deter
the man from behaving like this. Had no action been taken, other
defaulter borrowers also would have got emboldened to threaten the
employees of the bank to forestall any action against them for recovery.

The next day, he was summoned to the police station in our presence.
He claimed total innocence and denied having threatened any one as

94 | A Banker down the Rabbit Hole