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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Technology
Anil Kumar Tiwari

The dark world of illegal loan apps in India

Many Indians lost their jobs during the pandemic and turned to predatory loan apps [File: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP]

On August 12, a family in the central Indian city of Bhopal took a selfie in their home. After the photo, the father, Bhupendra Vishwakarma, gave his two sons, eight and three years old, a poisoned drink, and he and his wife took their lives by hanging themselves.

In his four-page suicide note, Vishwakarma, 35, who worked in an insurance firm, wrote that he was trapped in a cycle of debt from loan apps. Recovery agents had been tormenting him for months and the last message he received from them tipped him over the edge.

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