February 16, 2006	Thursday	Muharram 17, 1427

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PESHAWAR, Feb 15: Dealers of many cellphone companies are selling Subscriber Identity Module (sim) cards without keeping proper record of their customers, which is giving rise to misuse and creating security problems.

“There are hundreds of cases where terrorists and kidnappers used a mobile phone but they got away with it as they cannot be traced because they provided false information – and at times no information at all — to the mobile companies concerned about themselves,” security officials said.

The problem is worsening as mobile companies are selling connections without proper scrutiny of their customers, they said.

In most cases, criminals had fed mobile companies with wrong address, the officials said.

An official of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told Dawn that mobile phone companies were violating rules and and creating security problems, adding the issue had been raised many times by the interior ministry.

The cell phone companies had been warned by the PTA. They were made bound to verify identities of their customers and their home addresses through courier service and block sim cards if the information was found to be false, a PTA official said.

He said that mobile companies were not acting upon the PTA directives, which had led to serious security problems.

There are five cellular companies and sim cards are cheaply available. Mobile connections are available at various outlets including shops, petrol stations and Public Call Offices as each cellular phone provider wants to sell more and more connections.

The mobile phones company usually set higher sales targets and to achieve these targets, they authorised not only franchises but many dealers and small vendors in every nook and corner of the country.

“Our cellular company sold 90,000 connections last month”, an official of a franchise of a pioneering cellular company in Pakistan said.

The sale of mobile connections of the same cellular company is around 4,000 connections per day in Peshawar alone.

Mobile connections are available for as low as Rs200 on submission of a copy of National Identity Card on filling a form, a franchisee of a mobile phone company said.

Mobile phones, it was learnt, were extensively used by criminals, including those who were involved in kidnapping for ransom cases. There are some 20 million subscribers using mobile technology and in the next three years the number is expected to rise to 50 million, said an official of a well-reputed mobile company.

The police is facing problems in tracking down criminals and kidnappers who used mobile phones in a criminal activity.