Hyderabad: On Thursday morning, 36-year-old Siva Kumar , a resident of Diguvanagulavaripalle village in Chittoor district, took his family to the Ayyappa temple. After offering prayers, they rode on a mobike to neighbouring Errajivaripalem village. On the banks of the Sitamma lake, they then posed for a family photograph.

It was a picture of a family on an outing — till all of them jumped into the water. Eyewitnesses said villagers tried to save the family of four — Siva Kumar, his wife Leelavathi (30) and their two children Naveen (8) and Kavya (6) — but failed. Their bodies were retrieved in the evening.

The mass suicide showed that the ‘call money lending’ racket in Andhra Pradesh has taken a deadly turn. The family has left behind a note naming the moneylenders whose harassment forced them to take the extreme step. Their neighbours too told the local media that Siva Kumar was being constantly harassed by moneylenders.

The ‘call money lending’ racket makes loans readily available on the basis of phone calls. The moneylender comes to the borrower’s doorstep with the cash and a promissory note. The interest rates range between 120% and 200%. The lender, similarly, can ask for the money back over the phone at any time. If the borrower can’t repay, life and property comes under threat.

It runs both deep and wide in Andhra Pradesh, evidence gathered by the police during raids in Krishna, Guntur, Kadapa, Prakasam, East Godavari and several other places show. The raids also exposed the deep-rooted association private moneylenders have with leaders of all political parties as well as some bureaucrats.

The police also discovered how moneylenders threatened, coerced and dragged women into prostitution when they could not repay loans in time.

The racket came to light in Patamata when a Vijayawada-based woman lodged a complaint last week after she was forced to cough up about Rs 6 lakh for a Rs 1.5 lakh loan she had taken.

Three persons were arrested, while four others are on the run. A top lender, Buddha Nageswara Rao, who is the elder brother of TDP MLC Buddha Venkanna, was also taken into custody.

The Chandrababu government on Wednesday ordered a judicial inquiry into the racket after facing criticism for allegedly shielding ruling party leaders who have come under scanner for their association with ‘call money’ lenders.

Thursday’s incidents took place as the ruling TDP and the main opposition YSRCP traded charges against each other on the floor of the Assembly.

In another incident on Thursday, a 53-year-old Waheeda Bano was hospitalised after a moneylender and his henchmen forcibly took possession of her house in Kadapa town. She died while undergoing treatment. Her brother said she had borrowed Rs 1.20 lakh and had been paying the interest regularly but the moneylender forced her to sign on blank papers. The moneylender had threatened her on Wednesday night, he said.

Kadapa West circle police said two women attempted suicide on Thursday due to harassment by moneylenders. “Thus far we have not acted against moneylenders and individual chit fund operators since it was a civil affair. Now that the victims are coming forward to lodge complaints, we are conducting raids on call money racketeers,” a senior police official from Kadapa town told TOI.

Meanwhile, two women who had borrowed money from policemen at high interest rates approached the media alleging that the men in khaki had been harassing them. A woman lodged a complaint with the East Godavari police against Surya Prakash, assistant sub-inspector of police of Sarpavaram, alleging that the official had been demanding more than the principal borrowed. She told media that she had borrowed Rs 1.60 lakh.

Another woman in Chittoor district alleged that a police constable attached to Tirupati traffic police station had threatened that he would sell her children in a red light area in Mumbai. The woman had borrowed Rs 10,000 and shifted her family to Kadapa fearing atrocities by the constable.