Mumbai: Malad man lodges complaint after harassment from loan sharks

A 36-year-old Malad resident has lodged a complaint with the police, claiming that he had been facing harassment from loan recovery agents. The victim, who was in need of money, had applied for a loan from a mobile loan application. However he never received the loan amount. Instead, the victim, who had shared his photograph and identity details on the app, started receiving threatening calls from recovery agents threatening him to pay the money. The accused also shared his morphed obscene image with his relatives, friends and colleagues.

According to the Kurar police, the victim works in a private company and on May 24, he had downloaded a mobile loan app on his phone as he was in need of a Rs 3000 loan. He had also shared his photograph, identity card and bank account details on the app. On May 31, the victim received a message on his phone asking him to repay the money. In fact, the victim had not received any loan amount in his account. The victim did not pay any money to the fraudsters, after which he started receiving messages on his phone, threatening him to pay the money, else his edited photograph would be sent to those in his contact list.

The victim in his complaint has claimed that between May 24 and June 01, the accused persons had sent defamatory messages and his morphed photograph to his friends, relatives and colleagues. Harassed with this, the victim approached the police and got a criminal complaint lodged in the matter. A case has been registered on charges of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, punishment for defamation, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace, punishment for criminal intimidation and punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource.