A herbal firm’s handbook of ‘abuse’: ‘Drugs, fraud, and youngsters confined to rooms’

At a hotel in Bihar’s Begusarai on March 21, union minister and MP Giriraj Singh thundered on stage before a crowd of youngsters in suits. “A leader doesn’t mean a political leader…you’ve reached here by battling unemployment. So you are the real leader…If I wasn’t an MP, I would’ve worked for your team.”

The “team” the MP was referring to was a Surat-headquartered networking company, which also deals in herbal products, and whose motto is “disease- and unemployment-free India”. 

This story is about how multiple complaints pulled the lid off that tagline, amid allegations of fraud, exploitation and harassment of hundreds of youngsters from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

3 years, 7 FIRs, and modus operandi

DBR Bioresearch Ayurveda Private Limited, which goes by the brand name of DBR Unique, was launched in May 2021. But within three years, it has had seven FIRs – the first in June 2022 in Araria and the latest in June this year. The company had started out with around 10 centres across Bihar and UP – a number that has now shrunk to three each in the two states in the wake of the FIRs.

On its website, it showcases a beeline of products, from personal care to health care. But according to complaints, it’s also an egregiously exploitative edition of multilevel marketing, luring youngsters into jobs, and then forcing them to lure more into jobs that never existed. 

The alleged modus operandi seems to be simple: make a salary offer saying the job is about medicinal products, ask for money for training, pocket the amount, confine the candidate to company premises, and then force the same person into tricking more into joining the paid “training” programme. 

Sanju Kumar, a class 9 dropout and 20-year-old resident of Panchkhauli village in Bihar’s Bettiah district, told Newslaundry about how his parents took a loan of Rs 20,000 to pay for his “training”, and how he was allegedly stuffed into a room at a DBR centre in the district with five others from his village – two of whom had tricked him into the “job”. 

According to former employees, this training revolved around how to convince people to join the company.

“We were taught different subjects each day, most of which was motivational stuff. They used to say that if you keep working here, you will become a ‘crorepati’ one day. But for 10 days, I wasn’t even given any work to do. Whether it was packaging medicines or information about the medicine, I was told nothing. I was getting upset. We were kept locked in a room. No going out, no talking to people from any other team. I was getting bored.”

Sanju claimed his “room head” asked him to call all his phone contacts to offer them the same job at the company. “He used to get the calls made in front of him. Out of fear, I had to say whatever they taught me. After a day or two, I understood the fraud.”

Amit, among the two Panchkhauli locals who was forced to lure Sanju into the job, claimed he got no salary and just wants the Rs 20,000 given by his parents, who are labourers. “The family had borrowed the money to give it to me. It has been a year since I left, but the loan has not been repaid yet. They cheated everyone…even the food they gave was absolutely horrendous.”

The other villager who first called Sanju is Dhamu, who is still associated with DBR. He disconnected the phone call when Newslaundry reached out to him for comment.

The first FIR, and 70 rescued

The first FIR was lodged by Vinay Kumar, a resident of Bairia village in East Champaran district, who had joined a DBR centre in Forbesganj after being called by his friend Akshay. After an interview at a hotel, Vinay was allegedly locked inside a big room with around 70 other men on May 12, 2022. He escaped on June 1 along with one Manish Yadav, and filed a police complaint. The police then rescued nearly 70 youngsters, and arrested Muhammad Tariq, Neeraj Kumar, Deepak Kumar and Rambabu. 

Manish worked as a driver before he joined DBR and gave them Rs 32,000.  “After taking the money, they locked me in the room. They used to give me horrendous food to eat. Didn’t let me go anywhere, didn't even let me talk on the mobile. If we used to leave the room, two men used to accompany us to ask what we were doing. They used to forbid us from telling anyone what was happening here,” he alleged.

Second FIR: ‘Drugs and sex exploitation’

A case under the POCSO Act was lodged in May 2023 against DBR employees at Raxaul police station in East Champaran, after a complaint by a woman from Jharkhand’s Dumka district who alleged that her 16-year-old daughter was lured into a job that also offered computer training.

The complainant said that she reached Raxaul on May 4 with her daughter and deposited Rs 3,000 at the centre. She claimed the employees did not allow her daughter to speak to her, and when she tried to leave, they assaulted her. Naming five employees in her complaint, including a woman, she claimed, “The woman gives her drugs before going to sleep…when she wakes up in the morning, her clothes are a mess. She is sexually abused. There are other girls with her. They are also sexually abused.”

The police subsequently raided the centre, arrested the five accused, and rescued 12 minors – most of them were from Jharkhand and Muzaffarpur.

The third FIR names the company’s owner

In another FIR at Ahiyarpur police station of Muzaffarpur district on May 19, Omkar Nath Pandey, a 20-year-old resident of UP’s Maharajganj, alleged that he and his friend Pawan were made to deposit Rs 21,500 and trained with 500 others for two weeks.  

Omkar named 10 people, including company director and owner Manish Sinha and branch manager Mohammad Irfan.

“I was repeatedly pressured by these people to bring two people. On their insistence, I called Manish Singh, Rajan Kumar and Satish Gaur to work. They also gave Rs 21,500 to the company. After this, these three were asked to add two people each. After seeing the conditions here, when we refused to call more boys, these people locked us in a room. We were beaten up and they stopped giving us food. They started threatening us…we ran away from the centre when we got a chance,” read the complaint, which was filed after he managed to escape.

A case was registered under IPC sections 344, 342, 323, 420, 386 and 120 B. A few days later, the centre was closed after a police raid.

Omkar told Newslaundry that youngsters were also targeted through social media. “Until you pay the money, you will be treated and talked to properly. As soon as you pay, their behaviour changes.”

“All the numbers that are on your phone, these people make you write them down in a diary. After that, you are told to call 10 of those in a day, and ask them to join the company. At least one out of 10 gets trapped. I must have the number of my relatives or family members on my phone, right? They come here by trusting me. The same thing is repeated.”

Omkar claimed he saw senior employees do “bad things” with “women”. “If they liked a girl, they would take her in their car in the evening and drop her before dawn…they are called to sell medicines but no one sells medicines there.”

After Omkar’s complaint, about 70 youngsters from UP’s Kushinagar and Maharajganj as well as Bihar’s Siwan and East Champaran districts gave a written complaint to the Muzaffarpur SP about the company allegedly pocketing their money. When the police raided the Muzaffarpur centre, its operators Vijay Kushwaha, Mohammad Irfan and Ajit Kumar allegedly ran away with everyone's money. 

The Muzaffarpur centre was being run from a property belonging to one Mohammad Samad. At least seven youngsters were allegedly crammed into 10x10 ft rooms on the second, third and fourth floors of the building. Samad said he removed everyone after the recent controversy.

Fourth FIR: ‘They used to talk big’

The fourth FIR came on August 27, 2023, at the University police station in Bihar’s Darbhanga district after a complaint from 21-year-old Mohammad Haq Saheb. The case was lodged under IPC sections 420, 347, 344 and other relevant sections.

Haq’s story is similar to Omkar’s. He now works as a labourer living in a chawl in Mumbai. 

“My earnings were the only source of income for the family. I got a message from a boy through Facebook. He talked to me very well for a few days. We became friends. Then he told me about DBR. He told me that there is a medicine business here. You can earn around Rs 20,000 a month. I didn’t have the money, so I mortgaged my mother’s nose ring and took Rs 10,000. I was kept in Darbhanga. Most of the boys there were from West Bengal. My house is near West Bengal. I had seen the houses of some seniors who worked there. Their houses were not in good condition, but they used to arrive in a car. They used to talk big.”

He escaped after two weeks after he was allegedly assaulted for demanding a salary. “On the way, I met a journalist. He stopped me and asked me everything. I told him everything that happened. He took me to the police station and an FIR was registered.”

“When I returned home, there was not a single grain of rice in my house. My mother had a piece of jewellery, which I was able to retrieve 10 days ago, after a year. I had to pay Rs 15,000 instead of 10,000…I am just relieved that I didn’t trap anyone else.”

Fifth FIR: ‘No salary for months’

The fifth FIR was lodged under IPC sections 384, 386, 420 and 34 on November 5, 2023 in Gopalganj district. This was after a complaint by Astkar Alam, 21, and Shubham Sheikh, 22, residents of Malda district of West Bengal. They alleged that they were given death threats for demanding salary.

“Both of us have been working in this company for around four months but they haven’t given us a single rupee. Many of our colleagues are similarly trapped.”

Among the accused were DBR employees Jamad Sheikh and Keshav Rajak.

Newslaundry reached out to DBR’s owner Manish Sinha, and visited the company’s office in Noida, to seek a comment on the allegations against the firm. This report will be updated if a response is received.

Newslaundry also reached out to Begusarai MP Giriraj Singh for comment. This report will be updated if a response is received.

The last two FIRs detailing the alleged sexual and mental abuse of women by DBR staff, as well as exclusive details on how the company furnished incorrect information before the government, will find a mention in the upcoming instalment of this story this month. 

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