Hyderabad: A 31-year-old constable allegedly died by suicide at his house in Harshaguda in Pahadishareef on Monday due to reported harassment from recovery agents of loan apps. Police have booked a case of abetment of suicide against unknown offenders.The deceased, Mudavath Srinivas alias Srinu, was posted as a constable at Telangana Special Police (TGSP) Battalion, Kondapur. The constable was reportedly addicted to online cricket betting and his family revealed that he squandered over Rs 20 lakh on betting.According to Pahadishareef police, Srinu got married about a year ago. He and his wife had been staying in a rented house at Mansanpalle X Roads near Maheshwaram for the past six months, and they often visited the family home in Harshaguda.According to Pahadishareef inspector B Lakshmi Narayana Reddy, Srinu committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan at his family home on Monday morning.In her complaint to police, Srinu’s 77-year-old mother, Mudavath Gori, said that Srinu was the youngest of her six children and he came home around 11am. “Around 30 minutes later, my grandson Veeresh came to me saying that unidentified persons linked to online loan apps had called his aunt and father, threatening them to tell Srinu to repay the money borrowed by him,” Gori stated in her complaint.As the family was not able to contact Srinu on the phone, Veeresh went to check on him on his grandmother’s instructions. “As Srinu was not opening the room’s door, we broke the window glass and found him hanging from the ceiling fan,” Gori told police.Subsequently, when Veeresh checked Srinu’s phone, he found that the constable had taken a fresh loan of Rs 40,000 through an app. In their complaint, the family also claimed that they also found calls and messages from different phone numbers of foreign origin, along with morphed photographs of a relative sent to Srinu, demanding repayment of the loan.The complaint also stated that Srinu had earlier borrowed around Rs 10 lakh from various loan apps, which the family had repaid. After his marriage, he borrowed another Rs 10 lakh, which his wife’s family repaid. His mother alleged that Srinu lost the money in online cricket betting.“Family suspects that continued harassment from loan app recovery agents had pushed Srinu to end his life. On his mother’s complaint, we have registered a case under Sections 108 (Abetment of suicide), 351(2) (Criminal intimidation) and 352 (Intentional insult) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,” the inspector said.
