Keeping check on SIM cards issued on forged papers a difficult task,say police

Following the arrests in connection with the J M Road blasts case,the police had put a cap on the distribution of SIM cards on the basis of fake documents. However,the verification of the SIM cards issued in the past continues to be a problem.

Investigation in the case had revealed that terror suspects Munib Menon and Farooq Bagwan had procured two SIM cards by submitting forged documents. Both the cellphone numbers were used in the planning and executing of the terror attack. In November,2012,the officers in charge of police stations and teams from the crime branch were instructed by the director general of police to conduct drives to check the distribution of SIM cards by the use of fake documents. Till date,about eight cases have been registered against distributors and people who procured SIM cards.

An officer of the Pune Police’s crime branch said,“We believe that after the drive to check the distribution of SIM cards by submitting fake documents,the service providers are adhereing to the norms. For us,the headache is of the SIM cards that were issued in the past. The number of those SIM cards is more than 40 lakh. Their verification is a task next to impossible.”

In April,Pune anti-terrorism cell of the crime branch and technical analysis cell had arrested three persons for allegedly obtaining SIM cards by submitting forged documents. The arrested are- Manish Chavda (28),Rajeshsingh Thakur (28) and Abdul Bagwan (28).