Rs 1,000 debt case: Body of Ropar woman, who died by suicide, yet to be retrieved from canal

Ranjana Devi, a resident of Nangal town in Ropar district, died by suicide after being allegedly harassed by recovery agents of a private finance company to repay a remaining loan balance of Rs 1,000.

The woman jumped into the Nangal Hydel canal on Wednesday and her body is still to be recovered. The police sources said that the body was seen near Ganguwal power project of BBMB.

SSP Ropar Gulneet Singh Khurana said that the Nangal police has registered a case under Section 108 of the BNS (abetment to suicide) against three recovery agents (Shubham, Sagar and Abhishek) of a finance company.

Minister for Education and Public Relations Harjot Singh Bains, who represents the Anandpur Sahib Assembly constituency, called the incident “highly unfortunate”. He said that the district administration of Ropar has been directed to crack down on the people running illegal finance racket in the district and exploiting poor people by charging exorbitant interests from them.

The incident has triggered public outrage. It has also exposed how a network of illegal and unregulated private financiers continues to operate in the region, exploiting poor borrowers desperate for small loans. Such companies operating in the region, were charging exorbitant interest rates ranging up to 5 and 10 per cent per month, effectively 60 to 120 per cent annually in clear violation of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.