LAHORE, Aug 12: At least 100,000 cell phones have either been snatched or stolen from different parts of the country during the past 11 months or so, Dawn has learnt.
Since the launch of the International Mobile Equipment Identity System (IMEI) in last September, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority claims to have blocked 100,000 mobile phone sets with an average of about 390 a day.
The actual number of phone sets’ theft or snatching can be much more during the period under review as a majority of victims, it is believed, do not register complaints with the PTA. Similarly, the police also show reluctance in registering FIRs in robbery cases.
Karachi tops the list of cell phone snatching/theft with 51,000 cases, followed by Lahore’s 6,788, Rawalpindi’s 4,243 and Islamabad’s 2,632 cases during the period under review. The police are often reluctant to register an FIR regarding cell phone snatching and do not release such data.
According to a PTA spokesman, the implementation of this system has resulted in a considerable drop in the cases of mobile handset theft. To facilitate the mobile phone consumers and traders, he said, the authority had established a data bank of blocked handsets on its website, wherein the status of a set, whether blocked or not, could be checked by entering the 15-digit IMEI of that handset.
He informed that such complaints could be registered through the PTA’s toll free number (080025625) and email.
The IMEI aims at introducing a technology that blocks the use of mobile set once theft or snatched is reported. The idea is to register the identification/serial number of each sold mobile set and block use of any SIM on that particular set on the request of the customer.
Prior to this system, the cell phone users were availing themselves of the facility of blocking their SIM numbers in case of theft or snatching. The PTA had also formed regulations for blocking the stolen\snatching mobile handsets. After authentication of the complaints and the IMEIs, the database is updated and the stolen sets are jammed. All cell phone operators have developed a system in this regard.
It is not confirmed how many such sets have been made functional again as some reports say there is a facility available in the market to ‘decode the system’.
A source in the PTA admits that it is very difficult to check the decoding practice. It, however, proposes that the authority should take major cell phone dealers and organisations into confidence and devise a strategy.
The mobile phone snatching has become a menace depicting deteriorating law and order situation in the country. Capital City Police Officer (Additional IG) Malik Iqbal told Dawn that the police were maintaining mobile phone theft\snatching data and also registering FIRs.
