BAREILLY: In a brazen act of misconduct by a lawmaker, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA allegedly assaulted a bank manager here in Nawabganj tehsil. The incident happened on Wednesday when BJP MLA Kesar Singh Gangwar stormed the premises of the Baroda Uttar Pradesh Gramin Bank in Dalelnagar, brutally roughed up the bank manager Harish Kumar Hyanki, dragged him out of the branch and took him away in his car.The manager later returned after the MLA dropped him at an undisclosed location in Nawabganj area. A complaint was finally lodged late in the evening after top bank officials including regional manager PC Pandey held a closed-room consultation with bank manager Hyanki and other staffers of the bank.Police are already on the back foot over the case against the ruling party MLA and are playing safe. "We have received a complaint from the bank manager and the investigation in the case has begun. We will send the report to the speaker following which an FIR will be filed," the superintendent of police (rural areas), Yamuna Prasad, told TOI.According to the written complaint by the manager Hyanki, MLA Kesar Singh along with his half-a-dozen aides stormed the premises of the bank at around 3 in the afternoon on April 26. Singh, who had reached the premises on a complaint of payment not being made to customer, inquired the manager about the status of the complaint. "The complaint pertains to a loan defaulter whose account was seized after he failed to pay up installments of his Rs 50 thousand loan he had borrowed from the bank. There was no way we could have released fund from his savings account when the account was seized. I tried explaining the same to the MLA but he insisted on funds being released," manager Hyanki said in the complaint.With bank manager firm on his stand of nonpayment to the defaulter, the irked MLA, along with his aides, brutally roughed up the manger and dragged him away in his car and later dropped him to another location in Nawabganj. "MLA assaulted me, tore my shirt and dragged me out of the branch to his car. He later forced me to give an assurance in written that the payment will be made to the loan defaulter and threatened me of dire consequences otherwise," manager Hyanki said.The MLA, on the other hand, has categorically denied all the allegations of misconduct and assault. "No payment was made by the bank to a customer following which we held talks with the manager. There was no incident of misbehavior with the manager," Kesar Singh told TOI.A visibly frightened Hyanki, with bruise marks on his head and hand, returned to the branch in the evening only to the respite of his other staffers in the bank who went on a lockout after the incident. Staffers from other neighbouring banks also rushed to Dalelnagar branch after the incident in solidarity with the assaulted bank manager and anger was palpable in the aftermath of the incident.An aggrieved family of the bank manger also reached Bareilly in the evening. "I don't want my husband to be in a job where there is an open threat to his life. What wrong has he done to deserve such an insult," said manager Hyanki's wife.This is second such incident of alleged misconduct by a BJP lawmaker in Bareilly region in last 10 days. BJP MLA from Biswan, Mahendra Yadav, had assaulted toll plaza employees at Fatehganj west on April 17 after the latter asked vehicles in the MLA's cavalcade to pay up toll.

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