Pre-activated SIM cards used by militants, criminals for nefarious activities
SHILLONG: Taking strong cognizance of the use of unauthorized SIM cards of various mobile service providers by militant outfits, the Police department is now giving special attention to the ‘mobile menace’.
In a statement issued here on Wednesday, IGP, Meghalaya, GHP Raju said that availability of unauthorized SIM cards of various mobile service providers in Meghalaya was a serious security concern as those were being used by militants and criminals to create a fear psychosis in the minds of the law abiding citizens through extortion SMSes and through intimidation.
Stating that new DGP Rajiv Mehta has given special and immediate attention to the ‘mobile menace’ in Meghalaya, Raju said all the SPs have been given instruction to organize special and intensive drives against vendors dealing in ‘black’ SIM cards activated from Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura and to take up cases against the sellers under appropriate sections of the IT Act and other provisions of the law.
There are six mobile service providers in Meghalaya – Aircel, Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Reliance and Vodafone.
“All the militant groups, criminals, extortionists and 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 in fictitious names from Dimapur, Agartala, Imphal and Assam,” the IGP said.
In this connection, a review meeting was held on Tuesday which was attended by the SPs in Garo Hills wherein the DGP had directed all the district police chiefs to conduct raids on all shops where pre-activated mobile SIM cards were being sold.
“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 SMSes to the victims,” Raju said.
In the past, many prominent political leaders, government servants and businessmen had received threats and extortion SMSes from GNLA and other militant groups using illegal SIM cards.
When police verified the Subscriber Detail Records (SDR) of these SIM cards, the addresses of all those SIM cards were traced to either Dimapur or Imphal.
When the matter was taken up with the police in Dimapur and Imphal, they expressed their inability to locate the addresses of the subscribers of those SIM cards as all addresses and photos provided were fictitious or false.
What is encouraging is that Meghalaya Police has begun a drive against unauthorized SIM cards sold across the counters during the last 24 hours which has resulted in seizure of hundreds of SIM cards in Tura, Shallang, Williamnagar and Mendipathar.
He informed that Shallang Police had seized 72 Airtel, 59 Aircel, 97 Reliance, 155 Vodafone and 33 IDEA SIM cards and regular cases were being taken up against the sellers and vendors.
Williamnagar Police has seized 120 unauthorized SIM cards from various sellers while Mendipathar Police has also seized many unauthorized SIM cards from sellers in Mendipathar Market.
As per the statements of the SIM card sellers, a black SIM card is sold at Rs.200 to Rs.300 as there is no need to produce any proof of address or identity of the user, the police official claimed.
Militants were buying these SIM cards in bulk and using them for committing extortion, criminal intimidation and evading police arrest by discarding these SIM cards after committing the offences.