Crackdown on illegal SIM

TURA, MAR 4: Meghalaya Director General of Police (DGP) Rajiv Mehta on Wednesday directed SPs to organize special and intensive drive against seller of black SIM cards to stop its use by militants and criminals operating in the state.

“The DGP has given special and immediate attention to “Mobile menace” in Meghalaya and directed all the district SPs to organize special and intensive drive against sellers of black SIM cards activated from Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura States,” Inspector General of Police (IGP) GHP Raju informed.

Raju said, “The SPs were also directed take up cases against the sellers under appropriate sections of Information Technology Act and other provisions of law.” According to him, availability of unauthorized SIM cards of various mobile service providers in Meghalaya is a serious security related issue as they are used by militants and criminals to create   fear psychosis among the law abiding citizens through extortion SMS, intimidation.

In Meghalaya, Aircel, Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Reliance and Vodafone are six mobile service providers.

“All the militant groups, criminals, extortionists, kidnap gangs operating in Meghalaya in general and Garo hills in particular, are using mobile SIM cards of various service providers which are pre-activated on fictitious names from Dimapur, Agartala, Imphal and Assam,” Raju said.

During the review meeting held on Tuesday, Mehta also directed all the SPs to conduct raids on all the shops where these pre-activated mobile SIM cards are sold across the counters.

GNLA, AMEF, ASAK, LAEF, UALA and other militant groups get these SIM cards through their channels and extensively use these SIM cards to send extortion SMS to the victims, Raju said.

In the past, many prominent political leaders, government servants and businessmen received threats and extortion SMS from GNLA, and other militant groups using these SIM cards, Raju pointed. He however said, “When police verified the Subscriber Detail Records (SDR) of these SIM cards, all the addresses of these SIM cards were either from Dimapur or Imphal.”

“When the matter was taken up with Dimapur and Imphal police, they expressed their inability to locate the address of the subscriber of these SIM cards as all these addresses given and photos provided were fictitious and false,” Raju said.

Meghalaya police drive against unauthorized SIM cards sold across the counters during the last twenty four hours has resulted in seizure of hundreds of SIM cards in Tura, Shallang, Williamnagar, Mendipathar areas. Shallng Police have seized 72 Airtel, 59 Aircel,  97 Reliance, 155 Vodafone and 33 IDEA SIM cards. Regular cases are being taken up against the sellers, Raju informed.

Williamnagar Police have seized 120 unauthorized SIM cards from various sellers. Mendipathar Police have seized many unauthorized SIM cards from the sellers at Mendipathar market, Raju said.  He added that as per the statements of the SIM card sellers, each black SIM card is sold at Rs 200 to Rs 300 as there is no need to produce proof of address or identity of the user.

Militants are buying these SIM cards in bulk and using them for committing extortion, criminal intimidation and evade police arrest by discarding these SIM cards after committing offences, Raju asserted.- From Our Correspondent

 

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