Even prominent politicians fall prey to scammers in the world of cybercrime, which is a tremendous leveller. A person who is still unknown repeatedly called and texted the BJP legislator Ashish Shelar, requesting that he pay back a debt for which he had served as guarantee.
Shelar filed a police complaint of harassment. According to Shelar, he has never taken out a loan and has never offered to serve as a guarantee for the repayment of a borrower.
The legislator claimed that over the past two weeks, a person posing as from a lending app has bombarded him with calls and messages, to the point that his staff reported the incident to the Bandra police station. The caller persisted in pressing for the loan's repayment. However, he added that the caller didn't make any threats.
According to a Bandra police officer, a cyber crime unit from the police station is working on the complaint to find the source of the communications. "The number from which the calls came has been put on tracking mode," stated the police officer.
The case was registered after Navnath Satpute (41) of Shelar's office lodged a complaint. Based on the complaint, Shelar was asked to make an immediate payment of Rs 7,700 to cover the overdue loan amount.
Shelar told a local media outlet: "There was no threat... but I was fed up because of those multiple calls I received in the last two weeks... Despite telling the caller that I did not take any loan or stand guarantor, the calls would not stop…"
A case has been filed against unidentified individuals under provisions of the Indian Penal Code dealing with impersonation, cheating, and attempting to commit an offence, as well as under sections of the Information Technology Act.
Cases of fraud involving loans reportedly obtained through lending applications have recently increased. Between January and July, a total of 38 loan fraud incidents were recorded across the Mumbai city, with nine cases being solved and nine people arrested. Meanwhile, 116 cases were recorded in 2022, of which six were registered in 2021, and another 42 were filed in 2021, of which just five were resolved. In total, 41 persons were arrested over the course of these two years.