Kamal Ghorui
Predatory loan apps have been linked to at least seven suicides in Kerala. For many victims, the harassment arrives when they are already cornered
The true cause of a suicide is often obscured by the most obvious. A single event may appear to be the primary motive, but it is frequently nothing more than the final nudge for someone already standing on the edge.
For Nithin Raj, 23, a first-year BDS student at Kannur Dental College in Anjarakandy who died by suicide, the predatory loan app was only the latest wound, not the first. Police arrested three men from Uttar Pradesh last week for harassing Nithin over a small loan he had taken from an illegal app. But friends and family insist that framing the case around the loan app alone would be a serious distortion of what he endured.
In an audio clip that emerged after his death, Nithin describes a sustained pattern of caste-based humiliation inside the college. He recounts being made to stand up in class for no reason, then being publicly belittled alongside his mother, her surgery mocked in front of others, before being told his internal marks could be cut as a ‘surprise’ for his parents. Of the staff room, he says: “Each one there is worse than the other. I didn’t lose my patience and bore the insult as much as possible,” he says.
Police have filed a separate FIR relating to the loan apps. But the primary case now includes provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and abetment to suicide — an acknowledgment that the institutional harassment he faced was not incidental, but central. Investigators are examining whether a compounding effect — multiple stressors converging — contributed to his death. The loan app operators may have struck the final blow. But the ground had been prepared inside a classroom.
Illegal loan apps operate precisely on that edge, the one a person reaches after being worn down by something else entirely. For someone already cornered, a barrage of threatening calls to family members, combined with morphed, obscene images circulated on social media, can be enough to push them over.
Nithin’s case is not isolated. According to data from Kerala Police’s cyber operations wing, 15,100 complaints relating to loan apps were reported in the state between Jan 2024 and the first week of April 2026. At least seven suicides have been linked to such harassment in recent times.
In Sept 2023, the quiet locality of Kadamakudy in Ernakulam woke to devastating news: A family of four had been found dead at home. The couple—Nijo and Shilpa—had allegedly killed their children, aged 9 and 7, before taking their own lives. Shilpa had borrowed less than Rs 10,000 from a loan app. When repayment was delayed, the operators morphed her photographs into obscene images and began circulating them. It is believed this harassment drove the family to their deaths.
The main accused remain free. Tijo, the victim’s brother, says the family has been left in the dark. “We don’t know if a charge sheet was even filed. When we enquired, we were told that the investigators had been transferred,” he says.
In Chittur, Palakkad, Ajeesh, 36, died by suicide after borrowing just Rs 6,000 and having his morphed images circulated. Sources say calls from the loan app operators continued even after his phone was surrendered at a police station.
Mental health professionals caution against reducing these tragedies to a single cause.
“What we see at the last stage is only the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Dr C J John, consultant psychiatrist at Medical Trust Hospital. “Someone who takes the extreme step due to a trigger could already be in a certain mindset due to the cumulative effect of other reasons, ongoing harassment, poor frustration tolerance, personality and coping factors. It need not be the only reason.”
In Nithin’s case, Dr John says the broader atmosphere of harassment may have left him feeling entirely without a support system. Someone could be living in a state of deep insecurity after being repeatedly harassed and told they are inferior. If the authorities around them then handle the loan app situation poorly—using harsh words or dismissing the victim—that insecurity can tip into helplessness. If a more supportive position had been taken with Nithin, things might have been different, he says.
Despite the scale of the problem, the gap between complaints and action is stark. Of the 15,100 complaints filed, only around 300 led to FIRs. Many victims either lose faith after seeing little outcome in other cases, or fear the shame of admitting they were trapped.
In Kozhikode, two women, aged 32 and 26, approached police after their morphed images were sent to their entire contact lists. Both continued receiving threats even after they had repaid their loans.
In the past two years, state police banned 1,836 apps and took down 5,317 related websites. Victim profiles reveal that 32% were private sector workers, 20% were housewives, 10% ran small businesses, 6% were drivers, and 5% were students.
Cyber law expert advocate Feroze Desikan says he has spoken to people on the brink of suicide and that timely advice made a difference. He says if the app is unauthorized, do not repay. “If you pay Rs 1,000, they will make you pay Rs 10,000,” he warns.
He advises victims to get ahead of the harassment by posting publicly on social media that they have been caught in a loan app trap and that a police complaint has been filed. This pre-empts the morphed images, contacts who receive them are far less likely to confront the victim.
Desikan points out that abusive recovery tactics are illegal even among legitimate lenders. “Authorized apps and banks are only permitted to make reminder calls. The RBI does not allow them to threaten users. Authorized lenders are only permitted to make reminder calls — they cannot demand reasons for delays or threaten borrowers. Even a credit card recovery agent cannot ask why a payment is overdue, only that it is. They can take legal remedies, but not threaten people into paying,” said Desikan.
A source who wished to remain anonymous describes a calculated routine: Borrowing small amounts, around Rs 10,000, from apps he considers more legitimate than the outright bogus ones installed as APK files. When repayment is delayed, the calls come in waves, 50 to 100 times a day, unstoppable because they route through the internet. He gives a friend’s number as a secondary contact, who ends up fielding the same barrage. He eventually repays, and then borrows again.
At the same time, some have found ways to turn the tables on fraudulent apps. “People are duping the bogus apps by installing them on phones with no contact list or gallery, then simply not repaying after the money is credited,” says Desikan.
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