Bharat Rakshak

OK...Time for the recap and lessons learned for the QuickClot donation effort, 2009 - 2010.
Warning: It is a long post but try to read all of it.

I. RECAP

The QuickClot donation effort was started on B-R forums during March 2009 I believe, after distressing news came out about multiple 1 Para Cdos personnel KIA during an op in Haphruda forests and the fact that many bled to death due to lack of sufficient blood clotting haemostatic agents. Many B-R members were enthusiastic enough to do a donation campaign and this thread was created to coordinate the efforts.

BRF member Bhavesh Bhatt based in the Bay Area took the initiative and proposed that he will take care of managing the fund collection by asking donors to deposit the funds into his business account. He created a Google Docs document for donors to list their names, emails and pledged amounts and the same document was to be used for tracking the pledges which had actually been deposited into his account. He also asked for volunteers to help in validating the donations and keeping track of the funds - I volunteered since I am also based in the Bay Area and George Joseph and Rajiv Makkar (long-time BR member and now lurker) also volunteered to help with the effort.

The donations amounts were either sent as paper checks or were deposited electronically to Bhavesh's PayPal account. Bhavesh and I would meet up regularly and cross-check the funds received both via checks and via PayPal. I personally collected the paper checks from Bhavesh, kept records of them and deposited them. I also kept all the deposit slips as proof that they had been deposited in order to keep an independent record of donation amounts.

At this point, the plan was to collect all the money, get hold of the agent in New Delhi who sells military grade QuikClot in India to the Indian Army and arrange for simultaneous transfer of funds to the agent and possession of QuikClot kits by an authorized IA representative. For this purpose, BRF member Raj Malhotra and Mandeep Singh Bajwa were designated for arranging for and being witness to the delivery ceremony. Since the donation was intended for IA units who participated in COIN ops, Mandeep through his contacts found out that the Jat Regiment would be a good choice since they have a number of RR units affiliated with them.

However, after many efforts including directly approaching various officers of the Indian Army including getting a file opened to get this whole process approved, it became evident that the IA was hesitant to accept material goods (such as life saving drugs) from civilian donors. To cut a long story short after much due diligence and months of effort going nowhere, it was then decided to donate the money instead and request the IA to buy QuikClot kits with them and otherwise use them for welfare of serving jawans and families of jawans KIA.

The fund collection part of the effort went on smoothly till end of May 2009 with George playing a key role as liaison with Mandeep while he made arrangements for the donation ceremony. Beginning of June 2009, Mandeep Singh Bajwa intimated George that for the IA to get permission to accept the donations, he needs to have the funds available and ready to be transferred to India. At this point of time, suddenly Bhavesh dropped out of contact for reasons known best to him. Repeated calls and numerous voicemail messages by Rajiv and me to his cellphone asking him to contact us immediately went unanswered and there was no e-mail communication forthcoming either. Finally, after a month of getting no response, I personally went over to Bhavesh's office but found it locked. I spoke to the manager of the office complex and found that he still maintained that office.

After a number of days of dropping by his office and also leaving voicemail, on Wednesday, 8th July, 2009, I finally came across one of his employees waiting outside the locked office. I requested him to call Bhavesh and using the employee's cellphone I was finally able to speak to him. Bhavesh said he was too busy and would not be coming to his office that day and asked me to come the next day. As I was leaving I met with Bhavesh (who seemed extremely annoyed to see me but that is my subjective opinion) and he again repeated that he would meet me the next day (Thursday, 9th July 2009). I told him that things had already been setup on the Indian side by Mandeep Bajwa and we needed to transfer the funds immediately. I told him we would need a Bankers Check for the donated amount so that it could be transferred to India by Rajiv Makkar, since Bhavesh was claiming he was too busy with his business and did not have time to take care of the fund transfer.

On Thursday, 9th July, 2009 I went to Bhavesh's office. Bhavesh arrived a short while later and told me he wanted to speak to me. We had a big argument where Bhavesh accused me of trying to follow him and I rebutted saying that I have been trying to get hold of him for more than a month and his "disappearing act" behavior was highly suspicious for someone responsible for holding all the funds which people had donated for a good cause. Bhavesh then told me that he needed my identification and home address before he gave the Bankers check (drawn in favor of Rajiv Makkar). After I provided him the information in writing and created two (2) copies of receipts, he handed over a Bankers Check for $6000.-, an amount substantially less than the total tally at that point which was $9337.- On being questioned about the remaining funds, he claimed he had it but refused to provide it on the grounds that he did not trust any of the other volunteers involved (I, Rajiv Makkar, George Joseph and Mandeep Singh Bajwa). He further claimed that he would only provide the money once proof had been furnished in writing that the initial amount of $6000.- had been transferred to India and already received by the Indian Army.

On Thursday, 9th July, 2009 I FedExed the Banker's Check to Rajiv Makkar who received it the next day. On 10th July, 2009, Rajiv Makkar called and said that he had deposited the Bankers Check and the bank had told him that it would take 3-4 days to clear. He informed Bhavesh of the same via SMS and voicemail but no response was received from Bhavesh. On 15th July, 2009, Rajiv Makkar called and informed that bank had cleared the Bankers Check and deposited the amount of $6000.- in his account. All donors were also individually contacted and asked to check if their check/PayPal donations had still not been deposited and to cancel the same ASAP. Through these efforts a further $750.- was recovered making the total available donation amount to be $6750.- Furthermore, all donors were contacted individually and asked to provide documentary evidence that their donations had been deposited. Each documented proof was transcribed and an accurate tally of the total donation amount was made. Moreover, on this thread members were repeatedly asked not to send any more donations however, some members ignored/did not read those posts.

In the end, based on evidence furnished by all donors, the total amount of donation came out to be: $12,192.27 (and Not $9337.-). Out of this Bhavesh had handed over $6000.- and a further $750.- was recovered after a donor cancelled his check and reissued it to Rajiv. Hence, the balance remaining with Bhavesh as of this date is $5442.27, which is still in his possession.


After assistance from RayC, George and Mandeep, Rajiv got a Demand Draft in Indian Rupees for the amount of $6750 (Less draft making and FedEx charges) issued in favour of the Jat Regimental Center. He also went ahead and created some publicity collateral such as a large blow-up of the check for ceremonial presentation, a letter addressed to the Jat Regimental Center Commandant on behalf of all donors/B-R and FedExed them along the Demand Draft to Mandeep which Mandeep confirmed as received within a few days.

Thereafter a few months passed while Mandeep in collaboration with his Indian Army contacts tried to figure out a good venue and time to present the donation - this thread archives that discussion. Finally it was decided to present the donation to the Colonel of the Jat Regiment (also head of India's Strategic Forces Command) during the Jat Regimental Center Reunion in October 2009. Mandeep personally went over to Bareilly and presented the draft where it was witnessed by numerous serving and ex-servicemen and highly appreciated.

Now the Indian Army had possession of the donation but things did not end there. As it turns out, despite any assurances that might have been provided to Mandeep, the Jat Regimental Center did not yet have permission to deposit the donation draft even though it was presented to them. The permission to deposit the donation had to be obtained by the JRC from Central Command and from Army HQ and it took precious months to come through.

Rajiv Makkar and I were in constant contact with the JRC officers involved but by the time they got the permission and deposited the donation, the original draft had already expired (since 6 months had passed from date of issue of the draft). We also learnt from the officer handling the case that the donation during the JRC Reunion had actually been made in the name of Mandeep's father Gen. Bajwa - a fact we were originally not aware of. Apparently IA regiments have no mechanism for directly accepting donations from foreign-based nationals or even private civilians. But they can accept donations from their own officers or ex-officers. Hence, the donation was officially registered by Mandeep in his father's name (who is an ex-officer of the Jat Regiment). Therefore, the IA had sent the expired draft back to Gen. Bajwa even though it clearly stated that the draft had been issued by Rajiv Makkar and the donation was from Bharat-Rakshak.com. Fortunately, Rajiv was able to get hold of Gen. Bajwa who was very understanding of the predicament and kind enough to promptly send the original expired draft back, at his own expense, to Rajiv in USA.

After receiving the expired draft back, we were able to get written assurance from the JRC officer handling this case that they would promptly deposit the re-issued draft and send a receipt to *both* Rajiv Makkar (who issued the draft) and Gen. Bajwa. The JRC was also asked about which major courier services delivered mail at their address in Bareilly. After that Rajiv got the draft reissued, though unfortunately the Rupee amount was less than that of the original demand draft due to a stronger Rupee as compared to the US Dollar and deduction of FedEx charges. He then sent the new draft via FedEx to JRC, Bareilly which was received by them a few days back and as promised they have now deposited the draft and issued a receipt which was posted on this thread.

So after more than a year of effort, a major portion of the funds reached their rightful donors though regrettably a substantial portion still remains unaccounted for.

All donors and Bhavesh were promptly informed via email that the donation had been received by the IA and were provided the copy of the receipt as proof. However, Bhavesh has not gotten back in touch despite his promises and still retains possession of over $5000.- of the funds collected.


II. LESSONS LEARNED

1) No more ad-hoc donations efforts despite all good intentions. If anybody wants to donate please do so individually at your own risk.

2) Do not donate directly to Indian Army regiments and other armed forces formations especially if you reside outside India. Unlike US military, the Indian military is not used to receiving donations in cash or kind directly from civilians. If you have direct links to a regiment (for example, through a relative) then it is fine but not otherwise. The best bet is to donate to the Indian Army Welfare fund - Any Indian Consulate will accept such a donation and it is tax deductible also.

3) If you plan to donate, make sure you ensure that it reaches the right place. Easiest way to do this is by donating to the Army Welfare fund or by contacting the defence attache of the closest Indian consulate.

TIA.

RB Kudos and Thanks for the detailed post!

Thanks to all the folks who helped put the donatons across to India. George, Rajiv, Mandeep, RayC Sir, Gen. Bajwa et al.

Bhavesh, if you happen to read this do the right thing - you mentioned that your brother is a Brig. and is currently deployed in J&K. Honour once lost is rarely, if ever, regained.

RB - Thanks for sharing. It is shocking to read all the trouble and verbal abuse you went thru to collect the money from Bhavesh. With your persistence, you managed to recover at least half of the money. I am pretty sure rest of the money went to feed his lowly ventures and may be he was hoping that you will give up. swindlers come in different form and shapes. shame on you bhavesh.

Bose sir,
I appreciate you sharing all the pain you guys went through to collect and deliver the donations here, especially after the bhavesh episode. The information over here will help all those who are interested in donating to the IA's various welfare funds but have no idea on how to go about it.

Bhavesh sir, if you ever read this, please understand that the money was going to help soldiers who protect this nation and that you have betrayed them by doing such a cheap thing..

Does the threat of police complaint not work in massa land?

Incredible story .. wow.. all that .. for 5000$? really?... is life really that hard that you would squander your name and reputation for a measly 5k?

Raja Bose, you mentioned this guy's office - what business was he in? Whats the name of his company? which city was he in the Bay area? we should publicise the detaisl as much as we can so that others elsewhere dont get taken in.

rb-dada I raise my skull cap to you for the efforts.

RB,
Indeed, supreme effort on your part. Both in dealing with the distasteful episode, and also the persistance that you and the other members displayed in persuading the armed forces to accept the humble gift.

To me the saddest part is the fact that the armed forces took so long to accept the donations. It is some amount of institutional inertia at the level of the MOD, proper channels, and partly the pride behind which the armed forces live their lives.

BRF analyses, brings in the open the real issues. The army is not short of money, its just that there are so many things on the plate that sometimes something as vital as a quick clot kit that some would consider minor escapes attention. Perhaps someone thought that accepting this would draw undue attention to the absence of such kits in regular supply with the forces.

But hats off to you Raja Bose, Brig. RayC, George, Mandeep, Gen. Bajwa, Rajiv Makkar, for pursuing this and seeing this through! I wish I could have been a part of this beyond writing this post.

All donors are aware of his contact details and complete documentary records of the transactions are available to them and have been for a long time so it is up to them to pursue the matter. Moreover, since donors sent money directly, any kind of legal action can only be undertaken by the individual donors since the other volunteers do not have any right over the money, and neither does Bhavesh.

The sum of money involved in a very small one but personally such incidents leave a bad taste in the mouth - If this is the quality of India's educated elite then we are worse than Pakistan.

I wont really blame the IA for the delay. They are simply not used to accepting such gifts from the general public and being the institutions they are, they have every right to be suspicious of the origins of any donated funds regardless of the piousness of donors. Ofcourse that coupled with typical GoI babudom inertia and usual file passing up and down the food chain is what makes exercises like these interesting. But once they had the permissions in place the JRC were very prompt about the deposit and kept their promise of issuing the requisite receipts quickly so the guys at JRC definitely came thru in the end. Gen. Bajwa was also of big help because he quickly sent back the expired draft when the IA mailed it to him instead of Rajiv.

Raja - for the benefit of others, could you please provide the full name and business of Bhavesh? Thanks.

Kudos to you guys for salvaging this effort.

^^His contact info is available to all donors. I cannot post it on an open forum as it goes against privacy rules. Thanks.

bhavesh = user id "kobe" on this forum, correct? Can you confirm please.

For a second, I had him confused with bhavin, who is someone else entirely.

Yes, kobe and Mr. Li (and possibly a few more).

Not to provide contact information but as per my only face to face meeting with Bhavesh he had some financial problems with his business of manufacturing television related electronics equipment. As per him he frequented Las Vegas to attend industry related shows and make presentations about his product / company. His case of financial problems did not sound anything extraordinary at that time (around 2009 Q1) since many other companies and individuals were seriously struggling to survive. He was a pretty smooth talker though.

Quite unfortunate to see someone holding money raised for such a good cause.

Is it worth an effort to draw his sketch like Police does and distribute it? It may not bring the money back but some Indian somewhere can spot ...

Around 5' 8" height, wheatish complexion, somewhat chubby figure, ungroomed dry hairs with receding hair line from two sides on the front (typical male pattern baldness but don't remember about the crown)

Beggars belief. Makes you almost lose faith in the goodness of mankind. It is sad that Bhavesh gets to profit from this endeavour.

Thanks RB for sharing your(and others involved-George, Rajiv, Mandeep, RayC Sir, Gen. Bajwa et al ) in helping our defence forces. It is very sad (unable to use a stronger word-apologies) to see misuse of funds meant for a noble cause.
We sleep peacefully because the defence forces are awake. They do not complain. They fight and die unheard of by many of us. Brave souls.
Disgusting is the behaviour of individuals like Bhavesh. It belittles the efforts of many individuals who put voluntary time effort and money in it. It has a cascading effect on various efforts by inividuals to help defence orgs.
Net result is--now it is left to individuals to help the defence forces which can be difficult.
Many donors are fine with donating money but only a few are capable of organising that into substantial amount for useful purposes. I hope there are still some brfites who can come forward and continue the good work and manage the donations in future if need arises.
I am ready to help in whatever small way I can do including donations. My appeal is not to get disheartened because of one bad individual, but continue to do our bit come what may. setbacks are common but we have to put our efforts.

I think the lesson learnt is to open a separate bank account to collect funds and require at least two people sign to permit withdrawal of funds.

BTW, I do not think posting Bhavesh' picture here will be a violation of any law. Who knows someone might just bump into him and will have a chance to shame him in public.

Folks, such personal information cannot and must not be posted anywhere on this website.

Sorry. I'm not supposed to laugh. Scams based on fund collection are a dime a dozen in India.

Don't despair.

Yes, there are people like Bhavesh, Kobe, Mr. Li, that's life, unfortunately. But for every one of them, there are dozens of Raja, Rajiv, George, Mandeep, RayC, Gen. Bajwa and hundreds of unnamed ones.

Namaskar!

Except in this case the sum of money involved was pretty small and on the top of that, the guy's professional background is actually fairly distinguished (As a clue, if you have ever watched HDTV you are staring at some of the stuff this guy has done) and it was independently checked out too before any of the hera-pheri happened. I guess its sometimes hard to fathom what someone's motive is at any given instance.

Rajasaar is the guy someone young like yourself or much older in their early fifties?

Must be in his late 30s or so - looks older due to hair loss.

Raja sir, If i may ask, was bhavesh in some sort of financial crunch when the drive was going on??
I my opinion if the guy was under financial stress when this started then he was from the start having this intent which makes him an criminal, otherwise i think we can think of forgiving him...
[OT]
They should remove the title of BRF Oldie here... Creates a mental image of and age wisened guy automatically
[/OT]

To forgive him or not is up to the individual donors. Legally it falls under the purview of small claims courts as the sum per individual donor was quite small. Anyways all donors and admins have been aware of the situation for many months now and had been provided all available detailed records if necessary for their legal use. The purpose of this thread was to educate BRF members so that this does not happen in the future. TIA. As far as I am concerned the rest of the volunteers did their duty and delivered the recovered sum to the IA hence, I consider this chapter closed.

Lot of hard work and commitment from BRfites to make sure rest of the donation reached its intended recipients. A namaskaram from me to all of you.

Well this is a lesson for some one like me who always thought (foolishly) that BR membership represents a set of values (very basic ones, nothing fancy-shancy) in an individual. Sadly BR is just like any other online forum and will have its share of shady characters.

RajaBose,

Can you explain a bit more about why he was upset you met him and why he did not agree to release the entire amount in his possession at the time?

I do hope that once his financial difficulties are solved, he can do the right thing.

But would it be correct to surmise, he was already in trouble and hence took up this entire thing so as to get some easy money fast, and did not anticipate you folks going after him?

All this is quite dispiriting. As others have noted, if the latter was the case, it makes for really a sad commentary on human beings.

Also, are you aware of his current contact details - from some web,searches these seem to be available. If he still does not respond to any further queries, then clearly his intentions can be stated to be malafide.

^ I had tried to contact him via email & the cell number which was shared across when this effort was initiated by Bhavesh , no response.

Yeah, same here.

RB-ji

Hats of to you and Brig. RayC, George, Mandeep, Gen. Bajwa, Rajiv Makkar. My gratitude to all the contributors.

I am sorry that I never paid attention to this thread. I wish I contributed something.

Let bygones be bygones. This is a lesson we all have to learn. Money (or lack of it) makes people do interesting things. I guess some people lose their character when faced with such challenges...

Kobe planned the scam from the get-go, he was shrewd enough not to cash cheques and kept small Paypal donations after the complaint period expired. Everyone made willing donations to him and he has assumed himself as the organizer. The amount is small enough that he can't be taken to court nor can he be prosecuted for income tax evasion by the IRS because the amount was essentially a gift under $8K and not income. Each person has to file a small claims against him in state court and that amount will exceed the individual donation by 2-3 times. He pulled off a nearly perfect scam.

Scams are everywhere... This one was in the name of patriotism.

As someone suggested, if BRF wants to do such collections in future, it is better to create a trust and direct such donation through it. A single person is always a bad idea. Even if Mr.Bhavesh was a honest individual, imagine the scenario if he met with some emergency/accident. The cash collected would not have reached the intended recipient.

is this guy on FB ? send him sweet nothings there.

Bhavesh Bhatt made a reappearance on BRF over the past few days under an alias - "Mr Li".

Giving him the benefit of doubt, one of the moderators had contacted him asking him to respond to this Quik Clot Thread. He refused and when pressed, responded with "shove it".

Needless to say - he had overstayed his welcome on BRF and has been banned.

http://www.bharatrakshak.com/NEWS/newsrf.php?newsid=13280

As per this article Ladakh Scouts has asked help to rebuild an Army School damaged in the recent cloud burst.



My thoughts are we should make a contribution from BR , similar to the effort for Quick Clot , should be easier this time as the army has asked for it for a specific reason.
We can incorporate the lessons learned and better manage and audit it this time.

Comments ?

^^^If you know someone in IA, donate thru him/her and pay him/her back later - non-institutional civilian donations to IA require special sanction. If you are located overseas and dont know anybody in IA, then forget it. As for a QuikClot like effort, No.

Maybe we have some heavy hitting corporate types who could get some corporate help on this.

Great Job, Raja.
Fight against injustice is a noble fight, and this scoundrel should not be let scot free.
Let us see what legal options are available to recover funds from this guy. I know exactly what offense he could be prosecuted for.
And also lets picket his office, talk to his business partners, father, mother, wife, brother and his dog and shame them till this guy returns all money with interest. If not, he should be prosecuted as FBI checks all transactions above 5K. There is no harm in using FBI tipline.
Can you post his photo with details in the Entertainment thread with title "The Real Slumdog Lakhpati". Or to make it humorous, Title it "The real Indian freedom fighter".
I guess his details can be easily found from Yahoo person Search and Zaba Search and I see a similar person in Bay Area.

Karna_A,

Raja Bose & company have tried their level best. Kobe did not accept the over $5K in one single transaction, rather almost all of it was in PayPal donations from various BRFites around the world in small quantities of a couple of hundred USD over a period of time. He paid the nearly 3% Paypal fees. Since this was an impromptu setup, Kobe was in fact one of the organizers and the current dispute is between him and the others. Each donor must file a complaint in California small claims court and the filing cost is approximately equivalent to or exceeds the donation value, and it doesn't include your time and attorney fees. Its a lost cause.

I would rank Kobe equivalent to the terrorists who murder Indians in India and by not releasing the funds for the Quick Clot kits, he has blood on his hands.

Exactly my thoughts. Anyone who runs away with donated money for saving lifes is a terrorist and has blood on his hands.
There is need to plan this better. I am surprised this happened in US where there is a money trail of Paypal accounts etc.
What does he think he is? Anand Jon?

This is a straight FBI case, not a small claims court thing. FBI does investigate issues like people collecting fake for London etc.
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec06/holiday_scams121106.htm

Well, if FBI investigates I am sure it'll find many more scams in his business office. Is he really that stupid that for 5K he is ready to lose all?

I think the best way to deal with this is that whatever we get out of this guy, half is donated to Pat Tillman Foundation who was a true American Hero, and the other half to Indian heroes like say Sandeep Unnikrishnan family in Bangalore. I am sure BRF members will be honored to personally deliver checks at both places.
http://www.pattillmanfoundation.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandeep_Unnikrishnan

Just tell him that some BRF members are mightily pissed off with him and he has a last chance to pay up before FBI knocks on his door.
He shouldn't say afterwards he wasn't given a second chance. Lets meet if he doesn't heed the warnings.

If the cops in Bay Area come to know that he is sitting on Pat Tillman's foundation funds, he better have Ombaba on his quick dial or a one way ticket to oblivion, as no one will be able to save him. What a conniving scoundrel. May he join Anand Jon in his quest for peace and love in a federal prison.