Trader held for SIM used by Pak agents

A 33-year-old man has been arrested after in a probe into a SIM card used by operatives of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.

The Vodafone card was found active on India-Pakistan border and used to contact agents in India, police said on Monday.

The SIM card was investigated in connection with the espionage network in which five persons – including a serving and a former Indian Army personnel and a serving Border Security Force personnel – were arrested in the past one month for passing off confidential information to ISI.

“Technical surveillance had revealed that the SIM card was pre-activated on a fake ID,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav.

Police had last month arrested Rohini-resident Ankush Khandelwal with 205 pre-activated SIM cards.

Ankush’s interrogation established that Mohit Gupta, proprietor of Connection Planet in east Delhi’s Shakarpur, was involved in creating fake IDs and using them for getting SIM cards. The fake IDs were prepared without any residence proof.

A Delhi Police team led by Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) K P S Malhotra arrested Mohit in Shakarpur. Several fake IDs and blank customer acquisition forms were recovered from Mohit.

During the screening of his laptop, over 1,000 fake IDs were found in a folder.
“Mohit was using these fake IDs for getting SIM cards activated and then selling the pre-activated SIM cards for Rs 500 to Rs 700 each without obtaining any identification documents from the purchaser,” Yadav added.

In this manner, customers bought pre-activated SIM cards without following the formality of filling up CAF or furnishing their ID.

One such SIM card was used to contact a BSF constable and his cousin arrested in Jammu and Kashmir last month on charges of spying for ISI. Three other agents were nabbed in Kolkata.

Police have confirmed that “sensitive information” related to deployment of Army and Air Force units in Jammu and Kashmir was shared over the SIM card.

“Such SIM cards pose a major threat to national security since they are used by criminals and persons involved in anti-national activities,” Yadav said.