FPJ Cyber Secure: Bandra woman in loan shark net, receives obscene morphed photo as threat

Mumbai: A resident of Perry Cross Road in Bandra has lodged a complaint with the police for persistent harassment from loan sharks after she drew a loan of ₹69,000 from three to four loan apps.

The 26-year-old complainant had downloaded a few apps on her phone and drawn loans from them after sharing her personal details, Aadhaar and PAN details. On May 8, she received a phone call from an unknown person, asking her to immediately clear the loan money or face the consequences.

Threat and abusive phone calls

She told the police that she kept paying but was still receiving threatening and abusive phone calls and messages from over a dozen unknown numbers. She also received threats that her photograph would be morphed and sent to everyone in her contact list.

On Wednesday, she received an obscenely morphed photograph from an unknown WhatsApp number, and learnt that one of her friends too had received it.

Woman provides loan sharks' numbers to police

Fed up with constant harassment, the woman approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter on Thursday. She has also provided details of the phone numbers used by the loan sharks to threaten her and the bank accounts in which she was asked to pay the money.

A case has been registered under sections 384 (extortion), 500 (defamation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) and 67A (publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act.