Harassment by loan app firm claims another life in Telangana

Karimnagar: Another man allegedly died by suicide in Telangana, upset over being ‘harassed’ by an online money lender from whom he had taken a loan and was unable to repay it, police said on Saturday.

With this death, the total number of suicides due to harassment by instant app-based lenders have gone up to six in the state.

Pavan Kalyan Reddy (24) of Galipalli village in Rajanna Sircilla district, had allegedly taken loan from an online money lending portal and failed to repay the amount within the stipulated time, District Police Superintendent B K Rahul Hegde said.

When Reddy declined to answer repeated calls from the telecallers of the company, they called his cousin and asked him to remind the victim to pay the monthly instalment, Hegde told PTI.
Depressed over the harassment meted out to him by the company as he was unable to repay the loan, Reddy allegedly ended his life on Friday, he said.

The senior police official advised the public not to avail loans from such unauthorised apps.
According to police, instant loan apps offered loans to individuals and levied huge interest and processing charges among others.

They also resorted to systematic abusing, harassing, threatening of the defaulters through the call centres.

Cases have been registered in various police stations in the state based on several complaints that such firms allegedly obtained sensitive data such as contacts, photographs from the mobile phones of the customers and using them to defame or blackmail to get the loan repayment.