Police arrest 3 members of group involved in issuing SIMs illegally
The Bahawalpur police conducted a raid in the city on a tip-off received from CCPO Quetta Mir Zubair, who had told him that the number used by the group involved in abducting Dr Saeed Khan for ransom was traced down to Ahmad Pur Sharkia area.
Upon the information, DPO Bahawalpur constituted an investigative team headed by SHO Bahawalpur Shafqat Ata, which arrested the suspects, identified as Imran, Ahmed and Zubair.
The police also recovered many stolen phones and SIMS which they said were issued illegally.
Earlier, the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) had issued a notification to telecom operators that cellular service providers will not be allowed to sell new SIMs through franchises, customer service centres or retailers from November 30.
Service providers will also have to verify all unregistered SIMs by December 12. Unregistered ones will be blocked permanently using a 5% illegal SIMs per week formula, it adds.
PTA had also asked service providers to block the entire stock of SIMs available in the market so no SIMs can be purchased from outlets starting December 1.
Sources had said the interior ministry had issued some important directives to PTA regarding unregistered SIMs, which pose a great threat to national security.
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There is another security measure can be done on top of SIM issuing system, if we introduce security on SIM top up procedure, this is either made only electornoic issue electonic top up cards(that hold one time registration data), then current user will be more trackable.
Telco companies can introduce more lucrative post pay packages, and move good size of users to post pay. Pre paid SIM should only be activated with valid two layers of security, Photo ID and verbal authentication of details.
Give you one example here in UK Pre pay SIM are cheaper or free if user buy with a bank card(so they will know who is actualy buying it), though it still require SIM registration with user details before it can be activated. But it help faster registration and tracking if required.