Man running ‘illegal telephone exchange’ falls to death in Bhiwandi while escaping ATS

“Akhtar was re-routing telephone calls illegally, and our team went to the location to gather more facts around 7.30 pm (Saturday),” said a senior police officer.

When the ATS team knocked on his door, Akhtar allegedly threw out the devices that were used to run the telephone network from the window on fifth floor and tried to escape by going down the pipe outside the building.

“However, he lost control while coming down the pipe and fell to the ground… Akhtar was scared of being caught so we suspect he was trying to escape,” said an ATS officer.

Akhtar was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead before admission. A postmortem was conducted at IGM hospital.

An accidental death report (ADR) was lodged at the Bhoiwada police station in Thane where further investigation is on.

From Akhtar’s flat, ATS officials seized five SIM boxes, 140 SIM cards, one WiFi router and other electronic devices that were used to run the illegal telephone exchange. “These were the devices he threw out of the window before he tried to escape,” said an investigator adding that they were trying to trace the owner of the house.

Senior police inspector Ankush Bangar of Bhoiwada police station (Thane) confirmed the incident, saying, “A case has also been registered against Akhtar for running an illegal telephone exchange. ATS officials lodged a complaint on the basis of the seized devices.”