Nearly two months after a TV serial writer died by suicide due to alleged harassment by loan sharks of mobile-based lending applications, his family has been receiving threats over loans which he either never took or had repaid in full.

The Charkop police have now registered an FIR in the matter and are probing the case.

Writer Abhishek Makwana, 37, who was once associated with the popular TV show Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his flat in Kandivali on November 27 last year.

The deceased’s brother, Jenis Makwana (right), in a complaint registered with the Charkop police said that the instant loan application agents are now harassing and threatening his family members and friends for repayment of loans.

After Makwana’s death, his family had alleged that he died by suicide because of the constant harassment and blackmail by the recovery agents of these mobile-based lending applications, and that they stole information from his phones and were now using that data for threatening his relatives and friends.

In his FIR, Jenis said that after Makwana’s death, he received a call from someone on his brother’s phone. The caller asked for Makwana, he said. Jenis told the caller that his brother had died, but the caller got abusive and said that he was calling in connection with the loan Makwana had taken from them and wasn’t repaying. Jenis then asked the caller for the loan details and their office address. The caller refused to provide any details, and continued abusing him. He also threatened to kill him and his family if they didn’t repay the loan.

Jenis got frightened and he disconnected the call. Later, he started receiving a barrage of calls from several unknown numbers. The callers would introduce themselves as agents of different easy loan applications and ask for repayment of loans that his brother had allegedly taken from them. Jenis, who said he was not aware of his brother’s financial transactions, urged them to give him some time to understand the issue, but the callers wouldn’t listen, the FIR said.

Soon, other members of the family, their relatives and Makwana’s friends also started getting abusive and threatening calls. This continued until the first week of January.

On January 2, Jenis checked Makwana’s e-mails for clues to his financial transactions. He found that on a single day, Makwana had received around 40-45 small loans from different app-based applications – loans which he had never asked for.

According to Jenis, he came to know that his brother had indeed taken loans but those were of small amounts and that he had repaid them. However, several loan amounts were transferred to his bank account although he had not applied for it.

“I came to know that, while taking the first loan, Abhishek [Makwana] had downloaded an application and applied for the credit, furnishing a lot of personal details. They stole this data and later misused it, transferring money to my brother’s account without him asking for it. The e-mail also shows that Abhishek had returned the money that had been transferred to his account but he was still being harassed,” Jenis said.

The loan recovery agents had been continuously threatening and blackmailing him to pay up or they would shame him by contacting his family, relatives and friends. “This forced Abhishek to take his own life,” Jenis said.

The Charkop police have registered an FIR in the matter and are probing the case further. “We have registered an FIR under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code for cheating, criminal intimidation and intentional insult along with the sections of Information Technology Act. We are trying to ascertain if these loan application companies fulfil the legal requirements to run money-lending business,” said a police officer investigating the case.

Ritesh Bhatia, cyber security expert, says people are falling prey to these loan apps because it’s a hassle-free way to get credit instantly. “They are unaware of the harassment and blackmail they might have to experience once they get trapped,” he said. These instant loan apps charge huge processing fees and interest rates as high as 30 per cent or even more. After shelling out so much for credit, the customers are subjected to intimidation and cyber bullying by such loan companies, he said.

Nowhere do the app policies mention that if the victim doesn’t pay on time, their friends or families would be contacted, Bhatia said.

Moreover, he said, accessing someone’s personal data on phone is not required to process a loan.

The RBI had recently cautioned against such loans and asked the aggrieved borrowers to file complaints on its portal.

“There have been reports about individuals/small businesses falling prey to a growing number of unauthorised digital lending platforms/mobile apps on promises of getting loans in a quick and hassle-free manner. These reports also refer to excessive rates of interest and additional hidden charges being demanded from borrowers, adoption of unacceptable and high-handed recovery methods, and misuse of agreements to access data on the mobile phones of the borrowers,” the RBI said in a statement.