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The Times of India
The Times of India
National
Chethan Kumar and Santosh Kumar R B | TNN

Bengaluru: Kerala man held in joint military-police op for running illegal telephone exchange

BENGALURU: A joint operation between Bengaluru police and the military intelligence (MI) wing of the army’s southern command has led to the arrest of a 41-year-old person who is being grilled at an undisclosed location.

He was allegedly running an illegal telephone exchange, according to the police. The man, identified as Sharafudheen is originally from Kerala’s Wayanad district, more than 270km from Bengaluru.

According to sources in MI, the man came under their radar after a call that tried to gain knowledge about defence assets earlier this month. "There was a call from a Pakistani spy (intelligence) agency making very specific inquiries about a top secret, sensitive armed forces’ asset in the first week of June. This raised a red flag," one of them said.

The police have seized 58 SIM boxes and 2,144 SIM cards, which were allegedly used to convert international calls into local calls. The source explained: "...These SIM boxes come in different configurations. One comes with 128 SIM slots, one with 16 and another with 32 slots. Most of the SIM boxes seized came with 32 slots and together, the 58 boxes could hold more than 2,100 SIM cards."

The police said that Sharafudheen had allegedly installed four illegal telephone exchanges at Bhuvaneshwarinagar, Chikkasandra, Siddeshwara Layout in north Bengaluru.

The police have registered a case in the cybercrime police station and further investigation is on. Sources said that the MI suspects involvement of more people in the racket.

"We had been tracking the activities of the man since the first week of June and after we ascertained that he was involved in the operations, we took the help of the local police to make the arrest. The June first week call was looking for some really specific information details of which we cannot be divulged at this juncture," the source said.

Sources in Bengaluru police said that as of Tuesday they were yet to ascertain involvement of any other person, but that they were questioning people who Sharafudheen had employed at the exchanges.

Sharafudheen had been residing in Bengaluru for the past two years, the police said, adding that a local court has remanded him in police custody.

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