Harassed by loan apps, engineering student commits suicide in Bengaluru

BENGALURU: Unable to bear the harassment from Chinese loan apps, a sixth semester engineering student committed suicide by hanging himself from his mother’s veil at the HMT quarters in Jalahalli on Tuesday evening.

Thejas (22) was a mechanical engineering student at an engineering college in Yelahanka and was the topper in the college. He had taken loans from loans apps like SlicePay, Kissht and also from Kotak Mahindra for his friend Mahesh.

However, Mahesh did not pay the EMIs last year and the recovery agents started harassing Tejas. Unable to bear the harassment, Thejas wrote a death note addessed to his parents stating that he was unable to pay the loans and hung himself using his mother’s veil.

The grieving father Gopinath.

The autopsy was conducted at the MS Ramaiah hospital. Thejas’ sister Nanda performed the last rites on Wednesday. The grieving father Gopinath Thejas would get phone calls, but they did not realise that those were was calls from the recovery agents.

“They threatened to release nude photos of family members. They even came near the house and that’s when we came to know about the harassment. We had sought to pay up all the loans, but the harassment calls continued. The lenders have killed him. Even today morning, one of the recovery agents had come to our house and when we told him what had happened, he vanished”.

Gopinath said they will lodge a complaint with the police against the loan apps regarding his son’s death.