July 31, 2006	Monday	Rajab 4, 1427

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MULTAN, July 30: Misuse of the subscribers’ national identity cards by the cellphone service providers has assumed alarming proportions, but the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority seems to be least bothered.

In a cut-throat competition among the cellular phone companies the rules and regulations are being flouted with impunity. There may not be any limit to the number of subscribing cell phone connections for a person, but the phone companies are doing this in total disregard to the inviolability of the documents a subscriber submits.

Chips bearing connection data called SIM (Subscriber’s Identification Module) are sold by the respective franchise dealers of the cellular companies. Profit of a franchised dealer is said to be calculated on the basis of the number of SIMs he sells and, thereafter, on loading of every prepaid card on these connections.

Owing to the post-sale incentives, the franchisers usually sell the SIMs at a price half or even less than the prescribed by their respective cellular companies. Pre-paid connections carrying a free balance of Rs 150 of some of the cellular phone companies are available in the market at Rs 125, which means that a subscriber is offered an incentive of Rs25 for getting a free connection.

In an effort to sell more and more connections to win rewards from the companies, market sources say, the franchisers and their sublets do not press subscribers for compulsory submission of photocopies of their national identity cards and instead post entry of the new subscriber against the cards already present in their record.

Here are a few examples of the misuse of the national identity cards by the cellular phone companies and their franchisers. Sheikh Muhammad Baber Ali (NIC: 32102-2362231-9), 20 connections; Muhammad Abdul Qadir (NIC: 32102-0949255-9), 16 connections; Ghulam Akbar (NIC: 32102-9275382-3), 16 connections; Arshad Hussain (NIC: 32102-7348402-9), 16 connections; Ghulam Akbar (32102-2493020-1); Irshad Hussain (32102-3445663-5) 13 connections; Shahid Hussain (32102-6552851-1), 11 connections; and Javed Ahmed (Old NIC: 309-90-619773), 10 connections.

More interestingly, connections against all the given national identity cards are issued from a Mobilink franchise in Dera Ghazi Khan, which is reportedly owned by a close relative of federal minister for telecommunication Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari.

An Islamabad-based NGO working for the consumer rights, The Network, has recently received a complaint from a resident of the federal capital, Muddassir Rizvi, that a cellular phone company has commissioned connections to as much as 49 unnamed persons against his national identity card.

In his complaint, Mr Rizvi stated that he was contacted by the Mobilink operators accusing him of making obnoxious calls to someone from a number registered against his name. When he clarified his position that he had never subscribed to such a number, he was rather shocked to hear that he “was a subscriber of 49 connections”.

He informed the company that he had only subscribed to one number from its franchise outlet situated in the Jinnah Super Market after submitting a copy of his national identity card and that the franchiser would have misused his identity for issuing so many connections to unnamed people. He also requested the company to block forthwith all the SIMs registered against his name. But, according to The Network, no further action has been taken by the company and all the 49 SIMs are still active.

The phenomenon is causing more trouble for agencies responsible for maintaining law and order in the country. Multan district police officer Muneer Chi-shti said that the criminals were taking advantage of this dishonest practice and, therefore, identity in almost all the crimes, in which cell phone communication was involved, proved to be wrong whenever the police sleuths tried to track down the culprits through the mobile phone number(s) used by the outlaws.

The Network urged the Pakistan Telecom Authority, the sole regulator of the sector, to investigate the irregularities so that the law-abiding citizens may not be punished for the deeds they have not committed.