Shawdesh Desk:

Sale of illegally registered SIM cards continues unabated, often making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to trace the criminals.

During an investigation into a robbery incident in the capital, a team of DB Gulshan Division has recently arrested five members of a robbery gang from different parts of the country with 10 active SIMs of different telecom operators.

The SIMs were not registered in the names of the criminals.

The robbers bought the SIMs from a shop in Cumilla for Tk 1,200 each. The shopkeeper tactfully got the SIMs registered in an elderly man’s name using his (elderly man) NID number and fingerprints,” said Mashiur Rahman, deputy commissioner (DC) of DB Gulshan Division under DMP.

Some employees and agents of mobile phone companies are directly involved in getting SIMs registered through illegal means and they are selling those to criminals at higher prices, a deputy commissioner (DC) of a DB division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) told the Daily Sun.

The criminals use the SIMs for committing different crimes, including realising ransom and communicating with each other during criminal activities.

The officer said they conducted raids to arrest some criminals through SIM tracking, but failed to do as the SIMs were registered in other people’s names.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) earlier directed that the telecom operators must sell SIMs through their customer care centres, but they are not following the rules.

SIMs are being sold on footpaths, shops and other places. When contacted, Subrata Roy Maitra, vice-chairman of BTRC, told the Daily Sun that the sale of SIMs from anywhere except for customer care centres is illegal.

On June 28, a team of DB Cyber and Special Crime Division under DMP arrested three employees of different telecom operators from Dakhingaon at Sabujbagh of the capital with 510 active SIMs of Banglalink, Robi and Airtel.

Monirul Islam, an additional deputy commissioner of DB Cyber and Special Crime Division, said the arrestees collected NID numbers of different people and took their fingerprints to get the SIMs registered.

By activating the SIMs through illegal registration, they sold those to criminals at high prices, he said.

A case was filed against the employees—Limon, Sumon Ahmed and Sohel Ahmed— with Sabujbagh Police Station.

Law enforcement agencies arrested many criminals with SIMs registered illegally.

On December 15, 2015, the government launched biometric SIM registration to check eve-teasing and other crimes. The highest 15 SIMs can be registered against a NID.