Illegal telephone exchanges unearthed in Punjab

The officials of the Depa-rtment of Telecom (DoT), Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL),
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and the Punjab police have, in a combined
operation, unear-thed two clandestine/illegal telephone exchanges that were
operating in Jalandhar and at various other parts in Punjab.

The exchanges were being used for receiving interna-tional calls through
Internet and further distributing them on to the local telephone net-works. The
miscreants were bypassing the authorized international long distant operators
and switching these calls by using the illegal tele-phone exchanges, causing not
only huge revenue loss to the telecom operators, but were also posing security
risk to the country, as the calls handled by these illegal exchanges are bey-ond
the scope of monitoring by the security agencies.

One ISDN number was dete-cted on the calling line identi-fication
presentation, while receiving international call. Further, call detail record
called from the service provider, indicated that this number was being
extensively used for dial-ing various telephone numbers of Jalandhar and other
parts of Punjab. The raids carried out at the lotus tower and World Trade Center
at Jalandhar found the illegal telephone exchanges were equipped with
sophisti-cated equipments, telephone connections, Reliance WLL phones and GSM
SIM cards.

Internet leased lines were also found terminated at both the places. The
complete setup was misused for automatic switching of international calls
received via Internet leased link of Glide and further these received calls were
distributed to end user using ISDN conne-ctions of Connect and Reliance WLL
phones.

The matter was referred to the district police, who has registered the cases
under various sections of the Indian Telegraph Act and the IPC Act. The police
is further probing the links of the accused in the matter with other Indian and
foreign partners.

CyberMedia News

New Delhi