Yey another case of death by suicide due to alleged harassment by digital money lending apps was reported in Hyderabad on Saturday. According to the police, this is the fifth such instance reported from Telangana. The man was identified as 36-year-old G Chandra Mohan, a father of three, who was found dead at his home in Gundlapochampally on Saturday by his wife. The Rachakonda police said that Chandra Mohan had taken multiple loans from several lending apps to the tune of Rs 60,000 to 70,000 in October and had defaulted.
As he could not repay the loan, Chandra Mohan began taking loans from other money lending applications to repay the first loan. He had taken loans from as many as 10 money lending apps, according to reports. The police said that loan collection agents called people on Chandra Mohan’s contact list and shamed him for defaulting on the loan, branding him as a ‘fraud’ to his friends and family.
The police had earlier said that the loan apps, when installed, gain access to the person’s contacts, gallery and other private information. The loan collectors operate call centres in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Delhi to misuse the information available on the defaulter’s phone, to blackmail and shame them. In several instances, photographs of women were morphed with pornographic material and circulated to contacts on the defaulter’s phone, police said.
Other reports add that Chandra Mohan had also received threatening phone calls, around 15 days before his death. After receiving the threats, the family had approached the Rachakonda police and had even filed a formal complaint against the harassment.
In Telangana, the police have booked over 50 cases after complaints of harassment by defaulters. After a few deaths were reported due to such harassment, the police swung into action and have arrested 29 persons so far, including three Chinese nationals, for operating instant loan apps that do not have any approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The Telangana police have also written to Google to take down 158 money lending applications it had identified from Google Play Store.