On Thursday the Uttar
Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad claimed to have busted a major illegal telephone
exchange and spying racket. This is a very important case since the
Inter-Services Intelligence is alleged to have hired an illegal telephone
exchange company in New Delhi to make calls to army officials and source
crucial information.
The police arrested one Gulshan Kumar Sain, a
software engineer from Mehrauli in South Delhion accusations of operating
parallel exchanges for nearly one year. He will be questioned further on the
racket on Saturday.
The racket came to light after the army alerted
the military intelligence officials in Jammu and Kashmir. It was said that some
officers were receiving suspicious calls from seniors asking for crucial
information about the armed forces. Information such as troop deployment, staff
strength and movement of the forces were sought.
Many officers had given out information as the
numbers were similar to that of their seniors, an investigating officer
informed. However, one officer who refused to give out information spoke
directly to his senior about the call. When he was told that he had made no
such call, the officer decided to inform the military intelligence about it.
The Intelligence Bureau conducted a probe for
nearly 15 days and found that the accused persons were using call spoofs and
SIM box frauds. The callers from Pakistan made calls over the internet to the
officers using the parallel exchanges in India. The calls were converted to
voice calls through the SIM box. The receiver could only see Indian numbers on
their phone screens.
The IB then found that the parallel exchanges in
Uttar Pradesh were used to facilitate the ISI's spying. A major crackdown was
initiated by the UP police and 11 persons were taken into custody. The police
recovered during the raids, 140 pre-paid SIM cards, 10 mobile phones, 28 data
cards and five laptops.
Investigations also revealed that Sain had
registered a company in the name of his father. He obtained a licence for
making wireless products. He however ran illegal telephone exchanges. The ATS
is now probing his bank details and whether he was on ISI's rolls.
Source :- One India
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