Unemployed Pakistani man commits suicide over loan app blackmailing

Gulf Today Report

An unemployed Pakistani man committed suicide by hanging himself due to “threats” made by loan apps for failing to return the borrowed money with high interest in Rawalpindi city near Islamabad, local media reported on Wednesday. 

The deceased was identified as M. Masood, 42, and he informed his wife about committing suicide through a voice message.

She stated her husband had lost his job a few months ago,  leaving us not able to pay for children’s school fees and residence rent.

"My husband got a loan of Rs13,000 from a loan app after losing his job. In a couple of weeks, the debt went from Rs13,000 to Rs50,000,” the deceased’s wife said.

To pay back that loan, the financially troubled Masood took another loan from a separate loan app, which also rose to Rs700,000 in a few weeks, his wife said.

She further said that the employees from the online loan app “used to call daily to threaten police action against them if the loan repayment was delayed. The wife added that her husband committed suicide after growing tired of the threats and pressure.

"My husband informed me that the app personnel were threatening me to leak the pictures and different facts of the family individuals if the loan was not paid,” she added.

Rawalpindi police registered a case on the complaint filed by the deceased’s brother. Suicide will be ascertained after the post-mortem report, police said. Police also pledged to get the case registered in the cybercrime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency.