SAHIWAL: The gang which collected data from village women of Sahiwal on the pretext of issuing them Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) cards and got issued thousands of SIMs was, in fact, running illegal gateways in Chichawatni and Sahiwal areas.

The Yousafwala police busted the illegal gateway exchange and arrested five people in Chichawatni and Sahiwal.

District Police Officer (DPO) Muhammad Ali Zia told a press conference on Friday that thousands of SIMs of a Chinese telecom company were being used in the grey activity causing huge losses to the national exchequers and the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA).

The police seized five laptops, biometric devices, multiple SIMs of Zong company, Wifi devices, 39 mobile phones and gadgets of gateway exchange.

Yousufwala Station House Officer Imdad Baloch said the racket gathered identity cards and thumb impressions of women in the name of BIPS registration scheme. He said the these criminals would use a SIMS for three to 12 hours when it was under verification and activation process before the PTA registered it. The SHO added that that during the activation process, they used the SIM to divert international calls from the PTA mechanism,

The residents of villagers of 53/5-L got registered a first information report on November 20, saying that the gang with local facilitator Taj Muhammad, alias Ghuddo, issued 6,000 SIMS in the name of 800 village women.

Investigation Officer Fasil Nawaz said thet arrested five people in the case, of them three were from Chichawatni and one was from village 53/5-L. He said the police seized hundreds of Zong SIMS, activated against those women’s thumb impression and CNIC data. Those arrested included Taj Muhammad, Hasan Mahmood, Shan-i-Islam, Khalid and Asad. Dawn learnt from sources that in the last week of November, the DPO office wrote to PTA enforcement director in Lahore and sought information regarding SIMS issued in the name of 800 village women. The police sought the number of SIMs are active against women’s name, data on issue of SIMs, address code of the franchise from where SIMS were issued and the last location of SIMs.

Despite the passage of 22 days, the district police are still awaiting a reply from the PTA.

The DPO said they would pass on the gateway information to the Federal Information Agency’s cyber wing in Lahore so that the other criminals running the racket from Multan could be identified.

He said the police also busted the last month seven gangs and arrested 36 members wanted in more than 60 criminal cases registered with different stations.

The police seized one tractor, two cars, 26 motorcycles, three buffaloes, 10 goats, two bulls, 12 guns, and Rs6 million.

The gang busted are: Asif, alias Asoo, gang, Waseem gang, Arbaz, alias Bagh Ali, Farooq gang and Amir, alias Kamlla, gang.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2018