Hyderabad: Techie hangs self after harassment from online moneylenders
The victim, Sunil, had borrowed an instant loan of Rs.70,000 from an online loan app.
Hyderabad: The Covid-19 pandemic robbed him of his livelihood, and online loan apps that he trusted to bail him out forced him to take his life.
B Sunil (31), a software employee who lost his job as part of the layoffs during the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, was found hanging in his house in Kismatpur of Rajendranagar, a step he allegedly took after being unable to bear pressure from executives and promoters of online loan applications that he had turned to in his desperate attempt to stay afloat.
According to Rajendranagar Inspector G Suresh, the youngster was facing a severe cash crunch and had turned to an instant micro loan app for money. He first downloaded one app from Google Play Store and took a loan. However, he could not find a job to help him repay the loan, following which he downloaded at least 15 similar apps and borrowed smaller amounts ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000. “With pressure mounting on him to repay the first loan, he took more loans, with the total debt mounting to about Rs 2 lakh,” the Inspector said, adding that as part of the criteria to get loans from the mobile apps, Sunil had given the apps access to the contact list on his phone.
App executives and promoters, who were calling him constantly asking him to pay the EMIs, also began calling and messaging his mother, friends and relatives after taking their numbers from his contact list. “With constant calls and messages, sometimes abusive and threatening ones, he was depressed. Though he got a job recently, he did not join there,” the police said, adding that instead he decided to end his life. Relatives, who found him hanging in his house on Wednesday night, rushed him to a private hospital where doctors declared him dead.
Police said the fact that Sunil was being harassed by app executives and promoters came to light only on Thursday night when his family was trying to take the body to his native place in Mangalagiri in Guntur. “His family initially did not tell us about the loans. They approached us to handover the body without a police case. It was during the enquiry that the harassment came to light,” a senior police official said. Based on a complaint from Sunil’s wife, the Rajendranagar police booked a case and were investigating. Officials said the call data and messages would be examined with the help of the Cybercrime Cell, after which, based on evidence, legal action would be taken against the app promoters and executives.
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