Puducherry, July 13 (BPNS)
The cyber police of the Union territory of Puducherry have commenced crackdown on 69 loan apps after several complaints were registered over extortion of money, threatening, and blackmailing by these fintech apps. Cyber cell officials told IANS that a case has been registered under Section 66(A), 67, and 67(A) of the Information Technology Act and 420 of the IPC against these financial apps that are in the google play store.
The police, according to officials have already sent emails to the app platforms to delink these apps from their platforms. According to the sleuths, the Puducherry Union Territory has received more than 45 complaints against the loan apps in the past six months.
These apps are attractive to housewives, students, and people with low-income jobs who have difficulties in getting bank loans as they require several proceedings.
An engineering student who had to pay Rs 70,000 after he took a loan of Rs 10,000 while speaking to BPNS said, “ The loan apps are threatening me that they would morph my photographs into sexual postures and would circulate it among my family and friends. They are asking for 12000 Rs more which I cannot provide.”
He said that the loan apps have already taken his PAN card, Aadhar card details as well as details of the bank and these people are able to access the phone address book.
Several women have fallen prey to these loan apps and even after a single default, the morphed photographs of these women were sent to their husbands. An officer with the Cyber cell police while speaking to BPNS said, ” In many cases, the police had to intervene and speak to the families of the affected women to make them believe.”
The major hurdle faced by the investigating team is the presence of the servers hosting these apps in foreign countries. However, officials of the Puducherry cyber cell told BPNS that they are on the job and will crack it and bring relief to the people who have faced extortion, threats, and blackmailing by these app providers and their agents.
