SIMs scandal: Six suspects sent on 7-day physical remand

DPO asks people to verify if any unauthorised SIMs are registered in their names.

SARGODHA:

An anti-terrorism court on Thursday remanded to the police, for seven days, six suspects – who the police suspect registered 250,000 SIMs in names of Sargodha residents and then sold them off to people around the country.

The police had presented suspects Khurram Mehdi, Hamza, Javed, Rizwanul Haq, Mohammed Imran and Sadiq Masih in the court and requested a 10-day remand. They said that the men had registered SIMs in the names of citizens without their consent and then sold them off to people around the country.  The SIMs, said the police, could be used by terrorists. They requested that the court grant a 10-day remand so the police could interrogate the suspects about all the areas that they had sold the SIMs in.

Judge Mian Anwar Nazir, while granting a seven-day remand, remarked, “It is important to investigate and assign responsibility for such heinous crimes”.

Also on Thursday, DPO Dr Mohammed Rizwan appealed to the people of the district to immediately check if any unauthorised SIMs have been registered in their names. Rizwan advised people to send a text containing their CNIC number to 668 to verify how many SIMs were issued against their CNIC. He said in case of any discrepancies, the people should inform Rescue 15 and register a complaint, saying that bogus SIMs have been registered in their names.

The DPO warned that those who failed to do so, could be held responsible for any unauthorised use of SIMs issued against their CNICs.

On Wednesday, officials said that they had recovered two mobile phones at the indication of the suspects. The two sets had been used to register more than 28,000 SIMs, police said. One of the mobile phones was used to register 17,365 SIMs and the other 10,465 SIMs. They said they had checked the number of SIMs registered against the IMEI number of the mobile phones.

Police said the men had also registered three SIMs using the CNIC details of DCO Azmat Mehmood. These SIMs are now being used by people in Kasur, Bahawalpur and Dera Ismail Khan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2012.