Arrested Youths May Be Terrorist ??????
The Coimbatore City Police have unearthed a racket involving three persons who had availed themselves of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) landline phones in fictitious names with forged records and who were using the same for running a call conference or public call centre for ISD calls. In the wake of the recent terror attacks in Mumbai, the City Police Commissioner, K.C. Mahali, ordered checks to be conducted in lodges across the City to prevent intrusion of extremist elements.During one such check, the police teams came across three persons staying in a lodge at Lanka Corner near Coimbatore Railway Junction. The trio gave contradicting replies to the police and had no valid reason or justification for visiting Coimbatore and for their stay. Investigation revealed that the trio, identified as Arshad alias Irfan Ahmed (20), Jamshed (19) and Abdul Thameem (21) from Calicut, were running a call conference centre/ unauthorised public call centre in a rented room near Uppilipalayam in the City.
Investigations were carried on into the modus operandi of the trio by a special team comprising Inspectors Ramachandran, Thangadurai and K. Balamurugan. The team found that the accused were acting as agents for people running such unauthorised and illegal call conference and public phone centres in Kerala. On getting an SMS from the main agents in Kerala, the trio used to call the number in Kerala asking whether they had asked for an ISD call connection. On getting the number to be called overseas, the trio used to use the BSNL landline number and make an ISD call and connect the same to the Kerala number through conferencing.
The party making the call from Kerala would pay the call charges to the agent in Kerala for which the trio would get a sum as monthly salary besides expenses. Every time the billing cycle ends for the BSNL numbers, the trio used to abandon the room, take to their heels, start operating from elsewhere and conveniently escape paying the BSNL phone bills. At the room in Coimbatore, the police found a CDMA WLL phone by a private service provider for making STD and local calls and two BSNL landline numbers exclusively for ISD calls besides a Coimbatore City map which led to suspicion.
The gang, anticipating the billing cycle very soon, made attempts to find another house/ room/ office space in Peelamedu. In the last month alone, the trio had made more than 25,000 ISD calls largely to countries in the Middle East, especially destinations such as Dubai, Muscat and Qatar. Police registered cases against them under sections 41 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code (receipt of information regarding offence), read with 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery), 471 (using a forged document as genuine for the purpose of cheating), 120 B (Conspiracy) and 511 (offences liable to attract life sentence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The three were produced in the Magistrate Court, remanded to judicial custody and lodged in Pollachi sub-jail. “Preliminary investigations have categorically ruled out any terror links for the trio and they were only acting as agents for criminals involved in cheating BSNL and telephone service providers,” Mr.Mahali said. In Coimbatore, the trio had availed themselves of telephone connections in the name of Venaktesan, an auto driver. The three had taken him to a liquor shop and obtained his identity proof when he was in an inebriated condition. Another line had been taken in the name of Shabir.
