Telephonic Jihad: Probe Into Intimidating Conversion Calls Leads To SIM Card Racket

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Investigation into intimidating call for religious conversion led to the arrest of three POS and SIM agents from Sidhi and Singrauli who were fraudulently using customers’ biometrics for issuing SIMs and selling them to Rajasthan-based people who used these cards to make threatening calls to people to convert to another religion.

Kotwali police, Bhopal, while trying to trace the caller intimidating a man for forcible religious conversion landed on the three SIM and POS agents , said deputy commissioner of police (Zone-3) Riyaz Iqbal.

The DCP said that a man residing in the Kotwali locality had approached the police on July 2, alleging that he had been receiving intimidating phone calls from an unidentified person, who was forcing him to convert to another religion.

During the police investigation it came to fore that the caller’s phone was being operated from Bharatpur in Rajasthan. A team of cops was set to Bharatpur, but they were unable to trace the accused caller. Thereafter, cyber crime officials were roped in, who deciphered that the SIMs used by the caller were issued by agents based in Singrauli and Sidhi districts.

Police summoned Pravesh Prasad, the man on whose name the SIM was registered. He told police that he had had bought the SIM from an agent named Brijesh Kumar. Kumar, was collared by the cops, who claimed that he carries an agent ID.

He told police that whenever a customer turned up to purchase a SIM from him, he would take his fingerprints on the biometric device twice. He would use the second fingerprints biometric - that he took fraudulently - to activate another SIM in the customer’s name.

The SIM would then be sold to POS agents named Anil Jaiswal, Ramesh Jaiswal and Nitin Gupta for Rs 150 per card. Jaiswal and Gupta after their arrest told police that they sold he sold the SIM cards to people in Rajasthan.

The culprits in Rajasthan would buy the fraudulently issued SIM card to make phone calls to people belonging to a specific religion and intimidate them to get converted into another religion. The police have identified the culprits from Rajasthan as Asim Khan, Mehboob Khan and Osama Hasan, for whom the search is on, DCP Iqbal said.