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'We will welcome him with a garland of chappals'

What is the real story of Apace Finance, the company floated by Divya Nautiyal, son of former Congress leader Shivanand Nautiyal? This, you will recall from recent media reports, is the company Manoj Prabhakar was reportedly involved in -- an involvement he has since denied vigorously.

Rediff.com's investigations in Haldwani, Rudurpur, Nainital and Bhimtal in the Kumon region attempted to uncover the facts. And the first thing we unearthed was the very strong anti-Prabhakar feeling permeating the region.

"I have nothing to do with the Apace Finance Company, and even Divya Nautiyal has said the same thing in so many words," Prabhakar has been telling the media in the last few weeks. But the people of the Kumon region, who had flocked in their thousands when Prabhakar visited the branches of the Apace group of companies in the mid-nineties, are not prepared to believe him.

"Now Prabhakar denies it, because he is caught in his own trap," says a 60-year-old woman in Haldwani who had deposited money in the company simply because she had gone by the strength of Prabhakar's presence. "When he came here, he appealed to the people to deposit the money with the company, as it was going open new chapters in their lives. He even promised to open a sports academy in the Kumon region to give cricket training to youngsters wanting to become players," she recalls.

The same sentiments were echoed by dozens of others, who had fallen into the Apace Finance trap. "Let him or any other office bearer come here, we would welcome them with garland of shoes," claimed agitated investors, who can still be found standing around, in forlorn fashion, outside the now shut office of the company.

In tape-recorded interviews with rediff.com former Apace employees gave a run down of how they had become involved in the sting, without their own knowledge. "We cannot step out of our houses because the people catch hold of us and ask us to return their money. I joined the company in 1992 at a monthly salary of Rs 600, and when the company shut down, I was hedaing the Bhimtal branch," recalls Divya Pandey. "When the Bhimtal office was opened, Manoj Prabhakar was introduced to the people as one of the directors of the company. He even posed for pictures with us, there was a huge tamasha when he came to open the branch office. He even wrote an article for our house journal brought out on the occasion, and signed it as a director of the company. Now he says that he had no association with it. Nautiyal was also there. I worked hard, and people reposed their faith in Manoj Prabhakar and myself. I alone must have collected over Rs 25 lakhs. I personally lost Rs 2.80 lakh in fixed deposits. How can he still say he has nothing to do with it?" the youngster, whose hopes of getting a good job lie shattered by the scandal, moans.

N B Suiyal, a retired government official, also supported the contention of Divya Pandey. "How can a man tell things like this?" Suiyal demands. "I was the one who was co-ordinating the programme and making announcements on behalf of the oragnizers. The script given to me clearly mentioned that Manoj Prabhakar was one of the directors of the company. I told the people present on the occasion the same thing, when Manoj came to Bhimtal to open the branch," Suiyal told rediff.com.

Investor Rajesh Gupta produced a fix deposit recepit issued by Apace Nidhi and Finance Limited that bears the signature of Manoj Prabhakar as authorised signatory.

A former employee of the organisation attempted suicide thrice in the last two and a half months, because she could not face the angry investors who had been harassing her and demanding that she return their money. "When Prabhakar was signing the fixed deposit receipts at the time, he did not say he wsa not a director. If he had nothing to do with the Apace group of companies, then why did he come to each and every function that the company held anywhere in India?" she asks.

"These are shameless people. They use the police to keep the investors away so that no one can ask them for money. Both Prabhakar and Nautiyal have got security for themselves. Some employees of the company, who moved the Lucknow branch of the Allahabad High Court in July last year and got a stay order from the court, are now being hounded by the top management. Goons have been let loose to threaten those who dare to challenge their authority," said another former employee of the company.

Meenakshi, who was Apace's regional manager in charge of the Kumon region, are startling. She tells rediff.com that when she first started asking questions about why the investors were not being paid, the company officials first took back the car they had given her, and later declared her insane and told her to get rest and treatment. "I had invested around Rs 3 lakh, which I lost. I also lost all the credibility I had, with the people in my region. I must have collected over Rs 35 lakh for the company. Prabhakar came time and again for our functions, and no one at that point of time told us that he has nothing to do with the company. In fact, at the time he would say he was one of the directors, he would tell us employees, 'This is my company, I want it to grow'. Now he says he was never a director, that he is not involved," she laments, breaking down often in course of our conversation.

"On July 22, 1999, all hell broke lose in the Apace headquarters in Lucknow when it was raided by the UP police and they were accompanied by the lawyers from the court, armed with the stay order from the High Court. The court had directed the company not to transact any business, with immediate effect. I was then posted there. The employees ran out of the office, and so did the top management. That was the last time I was Divya Nautiyal," recalls Meenakshi.

Other former employees of the company are on the run, for fear that sooner or later public anger would catch up with them. Senior police officials of Uttar Pradesh, particularly SSP Nainital Akhilesh Mehrotra, avoided mediamen on one pretext or the other. The investigating officer Gangwar was away in Lucknow.

We attempted to get Prabhakar on the phone, but failed as he was not available at home. "He has nothing to say, beyond what he has already said -- that he is not a part of the Apace Group of Companies. A malicious campaign has been unleashed against him by some vested interests, whom he has named in the ongoing CBI investigations into the match-fixing scandal," a close associate told this reporter.

We went through the in-house journals produced by the company, and saw Manoj Prabhakar get pride of place in two collages printed in those pages. While the caption of one collage said that Prabhakar had joined the company as a director, another caption mentioned that Prabhakar and Ajay Sharma had steered the Apace cricket team to victory in a local tournament.

Ajay Sharma, it will be recalled, is the former Delhi and India player named in the match-fixing scam, and the CBI anxious to question him about his alleged connections with various bookies. His photograph in the Apace journals raises another question -- what is Sharma's connection with the company, and with Prabhakar?

Editor's note: Onkar Singh's investigations into the functioning of Apace, and of Prabhakar's alleged involvement in the now defunct company, continues on Monday