‘Drugs, fraud and room-bound youth’

On March 21, Union Minister and MP Giriraj Singh thundered from the stage before a crowd of youths in suits at a hotel in Bihar’s Begusarai: “A leader does not mean a political leader… you have come here by fighting unemployment. So you are the real leader… If I was not an MP, I would have worked for your team.”

The ‘team’ the MP referred to was a Surat-headquartered networking company that also trades in herbal products and whose motto is ‘India without diseases and unemployment’.

This story is about how multiple complaints opened the cover-up of that slogan, amid allegations of fraud, exploitation and intimidation of hundreds of youth from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

3 years, 7 FIRs and modus operandi

DBR Bioresearch Ayurveda Private Limited, which operates under the brand name 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 last in June this year. The company started with around 10 centres in Bihar and UP — a number that has now shrunk to three in each of the two states in the wake of the FIRs.

The , showcases a beeline of products ranging from personal care to health care. But complaints allege it is also a blatantly exploitative version of multilevel marketing, luring young people into jobs and then forcing them to lure more into jobs that never existed.

The alleged modus operandi seems simple: make a salary offer and say the job is pharmaceutical related, ask for money for training, pocket the money, lock the candidate in the company building, and then force the same person to recruit more people to participate in the paid “training program.”

Sanju Kumar, a class 9 dropout and 20-year-old resident of Panchkhauli village in Bettiah district of Bihar, said News laundry about how his parents took a loan of Rs 20,000 to pay for his ‘education’, and how he was allegedly crammed into a room in a DBR centre in the district with five others from his village – two of whom had tricked him into getting the ‘job’.

According to former employees, this training was about convincing people to join the company.

“We had different subjects every day, most of which were motivational things. They used to say that if you stay here and work, you will get a ‘crorepati’ one day. But for 10 days I was not given any work to do. Whether it was packaging medicines or information about the medicines, I was not told anything. I got angry. We were locked in a room. No going outside, no talking to people from another team. I started to get bored.”

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

Amit, one of the two Panchkhauli residents who were forced to lure Sanju for the job, claimed that he was not paid any salary and only wanted the Rs 20,000 that his parents, who are labourers, gave him. “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. They cheated everyone… even the food they gave was simply awful.”

The other villager who first called Sanju is Dhamu, who is still associated with DBR. He disconnected the call when News laundry contacted him for comment.

The first FIR and 70 rescued

The first FIR was filed by Vinay Kumar, a resident of Bairia village in East Champaran district, who had joined a DBR centre in Forbesganj after receiving a call from his friend Akshay. After being interviewed at a hotel, Vinay was reportedly locked in a large room with around 70 other men on May 12, 2022. He escaped on June 1 along with one Manish Yadav and filed a complaint with the police. The police subsequently rescued nearly 70 youths and arrested Muhammad Tariq, Neeraj Kumar, Deepak Kumar and Rambabu.

Manish worked as a driver before joining DBR and gave them Rs 32,000. “After taking the money, they locked me in the room. They fed me horrible food. They didn’t let me go anywhere, didn’t even let me talk on my mobile. Whenever we went out of the room, two men would come with us and ask what we were doing. They wouldn’t let us tell anyone what was happening here,” he alleged.

Second FIR: ‘Drugs and sexual exploitation’

In May 2023, a case under the POCSO Act was filed against DBR workers at Raxaul police station in East Champaran after a woman from Dumka district of Jharkhand filed a complaint alleging that her 16-year-old daughter was lured into a job that also offered computer training.

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

The police then raided the centre, arrested the five suspects and rescued 12 minors – most of whom were from Jharkhand and Muzaffarpur.

The third FIR names the owner of the company

In another FIR at Ahiyarpur police station in Muzaffarpur district on May 19, Omkar Nath Pandey, a 20-year-old resident of Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh, 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 come and 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, these people locked us in a room when we refused to call more boys. They beat us up and stopped giving us food. They started threatening us… we ran away from the centre when we got a chance,” reads the complaint, which was filed after he managed to escape.

A case was registered under articles 344, 342, 323, 420, 386 and 120 B of the Criminal Code. A few days later, the centre was closed after a police operation.

Omkar told News laundry that young people were also approached via social media. “Until you pay the money, you are treated well and addressed. As soon as you pay, their behavior changes.”

“All the numbers that are on your phone, these people make you write in a diary. Then you have to call 10 a day and ask them to join the company. At least one in ten gets caught. I have to have the numbers of my family members or relatives on my phone? They come here because they trust me. The same thing repeats itself.”

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

Following Omkar’s complaint, around 70 youths from Kushinagar and Maharajganj districts in UP and Siwan and East Champaran in Bihar filed a written complaint with the Muzaffarpur SP against the company allegedly pocketing their money. When police raided the centre in Muzaffarpur, the operators Vijay Kushwaha, Mohammad Irfan and Ajit Kumar allegedly fled with everyone’s money.

The Muzaffarpur centre was being run from a building belonging to one Mohammad Samad. At least seven youths were said to be crammed into 10×10 ft rooms on the second, third and fourth floors of the building. Samad said he had evicted everyone after the recent controversy.

Fourth FIR: ‘They used to talk big’

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

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

“My earnings were the only source of income for the family. I got a message from a guy on Facebook. He spoke 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 company 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 guys there were from West Bengal. My house is near West Bengal. I had seen the houses of some senior citizens who were working there. Their houses were not in good condition, but they used to come by car. They used to talk big.”

He escaped after two weeks after he was allegedly attacked for demanding 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 came back, there was not a grain of rice in my house. My mother had a piece of jewellery, which I managed to get back 10 days ago, after a year. I had to pay Rs 15,000 instead of Rs 10,000… I am just relieved that I have not caught anyone else.”

Fifth FIR: ‘No salary for months’

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

“We both have been working in this company for about four months now, but they haven’t given us a single rupee. Many of our colleagues are stuck in the same way.”

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

News laundry contacted DBR’s owner Manish Sinha and visited the company’s Noida office to seek comment on the allegations against the company. This report will be updated if a response is received.

News laundry also contacted Begusarai MP Giriraj Singh for comment. This report will be updated if a response is received.

The last two FIRs, detailing alleged sexual and mental abuse of women by DBR staff, as well as exclusive details of how the company provided false information to the government, will be featured in the upcoming installment of this story this month.

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