Leading start-up entrepreneurs from the country, including Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Ola cab's Bhavish Aggarwal, have written an open letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh to press for “free and fair investigation” into the Stayzilla case and oppose any “abuse of power”.
The letter, posted on help-yogi.com, a community of entrepreneurs battling against the harassment faced by Stayzilla co-founder Yogendra Vasupal (Yogi), and his unprecedented arrest, says that the episode uncovers the hardships of being an entrepreneur in India. “If ever there's a right to be an entrepreneur, that has clearly been violated. Period,” the letter says. “The question is not how this will affect entrepreneurship today, but how young Indians looking to become entrepreneurs in the future will give up even before starting.”
Last Tuesday, Vasupal was arrested by the Chennai police on fraud charges, based a complaint filed by advertising firm Jigsaw Solutions. The letter comes down heavily on the fact that despite seven days in prison, Yogi has not had a bail hearing. It has been signed by almost 160 (and counting) technology entrepreneurs across the country including the likes of former Infosys board member Mohandas Pai and Sharad Sharma of software product think-tank iSpirt.
For a country, which is in its infancy of a start-up culture, the Stayzilla case has proved detrimental for the 'Stand-up India, Start-up India' mission promoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“This is already had global repercussions and besmirched India’s reputation in Silicon Valley and elsewhere,” the letter says, emphasising on the erosion of the India's start-up image.
“... all this does shake the faith when it comes to starting up in India, building a company from scratch. As a founder, we already have enough battlefronts, from acquiring customers to funding growth and ensuring the startup doesn't die. You add a disgruntled vendor using position of power and influential network to make you go through hell, and suddenly, it becomes a battle lost,” the letter reads.
Imploring an immediate action from the Centre, the letter also brings to picture how the police almost coaxed Yogi to the police station and was “pressurised” to confess to the crime. “When Yogi was walking on a Chennai street, couple of cops in plain clothes drove past, snatched his mobile phone and asked him to come to the police station. They assured him they were aware of all the intimidations from Aditya. By the time he reached the police station, things changed. He started getting pressurised to confess to "a crime" he never committed. His refusal to confess to a crime he never committed only made the things worse for him.”
The open letter has also been marked to Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, among others.
