Mumbai, Sept. 20: If you are too poor to repay the bank loan, the recovery agents allegedly told Prakash Sarwankar, sell your wife and children.

The 38-year-old father of three decided to kill himself on Monday.

The jobless man, who had borrowed Rs 50,000 from ICICI Bank in January but has been ill since April, was harassed for two months and insulted before his children, police said.

“Every day they threatened my father and abused him. Because of them he committed suicide,” eight-year-old Pranita has told the police.

Sarwankar’s suicide note alleges the agents told him: “Sell off your wife, your kids, yourself, sell everything at your home.”

In February, the Supreme Court had told banks not to hire goondas to recover loans but the Mumbai police say harassment by recovery agents has become a huge problem.

Anita Shukla (name changed), 48, who paid the EMI regularly on her Rs 50,000 bank loan until the day her husband became bed-ridden, says she regularly thinks of suicide. She, too, has been insulted before her children.

“I cannot take it any more. I want to put a full stop to it, even if that means death.”

In June, K. Yadaiah, an ailing 42-year-old government electrician in Hyderabad, died after allegedly being kidnapped and confined by agents of a recovery firm hired by ICICI Bank.

Agents have been accused of kidnapping defaulters or their children, threatening defaulters with murder, and taking away families’ cars, two-wheelers, refrigerators, washing machines, computers, even their TV sets.

“Banks and financial institutions outsource the job to firms that send these agents to defaulters’ homes. The agents are paid Rs 4,000-5,000 a month. The agencies get 10 to 40 per cent of the sum they recover,” a bank executive in Calcutta said.

“The agents are not bank employees, they are hired by the recovery agency,” he said, adding this was why the banks escape prosecution.

The Reserve Bank, however, has said banks are responsible for their loan recovery agents’ actions.

Sarwankar’s tormentors were from Nishant Associates, which feared losing the bank contract if the client, suffering from jaundice, died before the money was recovered, the police said.

Agency owner Nishant Nagrale, 29, has been arrested with agents Hiren Vaidya, 25, Kailash Chowdhary, 27, and Tushar Pargaonkar, 25.

“I have asked the police commissioner to probe all such complaints,” deputy chief minister R.R. Patil said. “People with similar experience should approach the police.”