Pune: A Rs 12-13 lakh loan nobody admits to taking. A recovery agent who appears to know every inch of the family tree. And threatening calls that leave a household too frightened to keep their phones switched on.Deepak Sukhramani (63) and his family in Pune have been living this nightmare since Oct 22, when a man claiming to be a loan recovery agent made an invective- and threat-laced phone call, not even sparing his pregnant daughter-in-law and 92-year-old mother.The family, none of whom had any pending loans, was so unnerved by the constant harassment that its elderly members took to switching their phones off between 11 am and 5 pm.
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Further, the family says two complaints at the Wanowrie police chowkey on Oct 23 and 26 had no effect. The calls continue and the family lives in fear.“What scared me was how this guy knew all my relatives — even the distant ones — and their full names,” Sukhramani says.The trouble began around 10.30 am on Oct 22, when Sukhramani’s son and wife got calls from unknown numbers, which they didn’t answer. “I answered a call around 1.20 pm. A man identified himself as Baagwan and claimed a relative had an outstanding loan. When I said I had nothing to do with it, his tone became abusive and threatening,” he says.He disconnected and, when the calls didn’t stop, blocked that number. The man then called his wife, mother, brother and sister-in-law, identifying them correctly. The calls would begin at 11 am daily and stop at 5.30 pm, he said. “I can’t afford to not answer calls from unknown numbers as I’m in the car business and get such calls all the time.”Sukhramani says one such abusive call, when he pressed the caller for details, shook him. “I asked him who had taken the loan. He said, ‘Kunal’s brother Mayur.’” Sukhramani said Mayur was his daughter-in-law’s cousin. “His knowledge of even my extended family completely spooked me,” he says.The caller threatened to keep calling until the loan was repaid. “I told him I would give him Mayur’s number, but he wasn’t interested. He kept making abusive, threatening calls to everyone in my family,” Sukhramani adds.The family approached the Wanowrie police chowkey on Oct 23, but says their complaint wasn’t accepted. “We filled up an online FIR form and submitted it at the chowkey. The police gave us an acknowledgement after much convincing,” Sukhramani says. The family lodged another complaint on Oct 26 when the calls didn’t stop.Mayur, the relative in whose name there was the Rs 12-13 lakh loan, says he never received a call about this. “It was only after my relatives started getting calls that I came to know about this,” Mayur tells TOI.In one instance, Sukhramani’s son connected Mayur and the caller on a conference call. “I asked him to tell me where I’d taken the loan from and how to repay it,” Mayur says. The call gave the name of a private lending company. “I went to their local branch and was told there were no outstanding loans in my name. I don’t know what to do.”Things then got worse — Sukhramani started getting OTPs from various e-commerce and delivery platforms. “These seem to be system-generated calls,” Sukhramani says. Desperate and frightened, the family even offered to let the police surveil their phones. “We are under so much pressure … we have never downloaded any loan apps. We only ever borrowed from banks and repaid them on time,” Sukhramani said.“When you and your family are constantly threatened and abused over calls, you live in constant fear. Every ring sends your anxiety soaring,” he added.The Wanowrie police said, “We have uploaded a complaint and the contact numbers on the RBI Sachet app. We have also activated Do Not Disturb to stop the unwanted messages. We have asked them to contact us as soon as the next call comes to track them,” a police officer said.
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