Protests were held at Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand on Friday after the Thursday incident in which a daughter of a disabled farmer was run over fatally by hired men of a private finance firm for failing to clear dues.

The 27-year-old Monika Mehta, daughter of orthopaedically challenged farmer Mithilesh Kumar Mehta, was pleading with the recovery agents of Mahindra Finance not to take the tractor and that they were willing to clear the instalment, reports said. But one of the recovery agents started a tractor, running over the woman and causing her grievous injuries at Ichak block in Hazaribagh, around 130km from Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi on Thursday noon.

The injured woman was taken to the Hazaribagh Medical College and Hospital and seeing her condition, she was referred to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences in Ranchi, where she died on Thursday evening.

According to the victim’s father, Mithilesh Kumar Mehta, who is crippled in his left leg and is a native of Sijuva village, he had purchased a tractor in 2018 on loan and used to park the tractor a few meters away from his house near a petrol outlet.

A few days ago he had got a message on his mobile phone to deposit Rs 1.2 lakh as defaulting money for non-payment of loan. But he could not pay the monthly instalments due to losses incurred during Covid and poor financial condition.

On Thursday, he got a call from the petrol outlet that four men on a car were taking away his tractor. He rushed to the spot on a bike along with his daughter who had come from in-laws house which is also in the same village.

They found the tractor on the way and gestured to the man driving the tractor to stop. At this, four men coming in a car identified themselves as officials of Mahindra Finance and asked him to clear the outstanding dues.

Mithilesh asked the men to show their identity cards before paying of the amount. At this the men got infuriated and asked the person on the tractor to start the vehicle. Monika pleaded with the driver not to take the tractor and fell in front of the tractor but the person did not heed and started the tractor running over the woman. However, the person left the tractor at a distance after other persons started shouting seeing the critical condition of the woman and fled with the persons in the car.

Hazaribagh SP Manoj Ratan Chothe said that FIR has been lodged and a case has been registered under section 302 of the IPC (murder).

“We have lodged a case of murder against the accused person and would be arresting the accused soon. We will also warn the private finance companies operating in the district to inform police before taking help of recovery agents to realise loans,” said the SP.

Meanwhile, large number of persons staged a dharna in front of the Mahindra Finance office in Hazaribagh demanding arrest of the officials involved in the crime.