Dr B Thomas (Special correspondent)
Borrowing Rs.12,500 from mobile loan app , proved costly for a 40-year-old engineer who was forced to pay Rs.45 lakh over the last 1.3 years .
The victim,Potta Anand Kumar borrowed Rs. 12,500 in April 2021 end up paying Rs.12,328 every day for the last one year,three months.
In his complaint,Potta Anand Kumar,resident of Hulimavu,said that he had borrowed the loan in April 2021 during covid lock down time,when he was jobless .
The victim said that he had repaid Rs.24,000 along with the interest within a week.
Despite repayment,Kumar started getting threat calls from different numbers and being abused regularly demanding to pay more money.
The caller even accessed the list of his contacts and sending them messages and blackmailed him with the morphed pictures of wife.
They threatened to upload it on social media if the money is not paid and forced him to transfer as much as Rs.45 lakh online to different accounts till recently.
Despite this,the the calls demanding more money increased,Kumar approached the Southeast cyber crime police and filed a complaint on Friday.
Based on the complaint the police are trying to track down the callers through the mobile numbers and bank account details provided .
The cases of loan app harassment are on the rise as it is difficult to track down the accused as they have availed the SIM through fake ID and using the bank account of people from the remote villagers in Northeast states,offering the account holder little money every month,a police officer, probing the case, said.
