Cellphone firms hand in glove with tout to boost sales

MUMBAI: The probe into the seizure of one lakh SIM cards in Bhiwandi indicates connivance of some service providers to show an increase in sales, the police said.
The arrested accused, Anwar Bablu (33), had been selling SIM cards for making national and international calls for the last six months, the police said. Most of the cards were sold on fake documents, say police.
On July 22, the Shanti Nagar police in Bhiwandi arrested Bablu, who owns a PCO, for possessing one lakh SIM cards.The cards belonged to various service providers. Bablu is a native of Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh; he told the police that various companies and distributors helped him procure the SIM cards.
K P Raghuvanshi, Thane police commissioner, said, "We are trying to find out who gave him so many SIM cards. The culprit will be arrested soon." Shafqat Usmani, a SIM card retailer and owner of Day Night communication in Mumbai, said, such cards are mostly given to retailers by companies. "The firms promise incentives and lucrative offers to sell maximum number of SIM cards or to achieve the target. In most cases, we have observed that the companies fill the customer application form (CAF) and simply ask retailers or distributors to sell the cards," said Usmani.
Another retailer said that a delegation of SIM card dealers had met department of telecommunication (DoT) officials and described instances when SIM cards were activated on tendering fake and forged documents. "As per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) rule it's the duty of service providers to verify the documents of a SIM card holder within seven days of activation. However, the companies ask retailers to do this task," said Amjad Khan, owner of Misbah Electronics, also a distributor.
Bablu arrest comes at a time when the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) and central agencies are busy scrutinizing thousands of phone calls made before and after the triple bomb blasts in Mumbai on July 13. An ATS team also landed at Bhiwandi to assist in the probe.
Bablu has been booked for criminal breach of trust and cheating. He has been remanded in police custody till July 25. Bablu had been selling SIM cards, in most of the cases without any document, to customers at a cheaper rate. He would ask his regular customers to use the card and return it when the balance exhausted. The SIM cards would be recharged and given to other customers. "We suspect Bablu had been selling these cards to STD and PCO booth owners," sources said.