Illegal SIMs may land ‘owners’ in hot water
By: USMAN CHEEMA
ISLAMABAD: Alarming situation arises for those mobile phone subscribers who have not yet blocked the SIMs registered wrongfully in their names, as soon they might face serious repercussions of their lethargic behaviour in terms of terrorism or different cases registered against them.
According to the government policy, if a subscriber does not block the wrongfully registered SIM with his name in the data of any mobile operator, that SIM will be considered in his ownership and if something illegal happens using that SIM, the owner will have to face the consequences.
As per the official data there are around 4.7 million SIMs those are not yet re-verified by the subscribers by sending the SMS to 668 carrying the CNIC number. It is a way suggested by the Pakistan Telecom Authority to re-verify the SIMs by the subscribers as they send their CNIC number to 668 and in response an automatically generated message tells them about the number of SIMs issued in their names from different mobile operators.
Certain quarters believe that there are many subscribers those even have sent message to 668 and found the information about their ownership of SIMs incorrect but did not contact the relevant service centres due to their busy schedule or lethargic behaviour. Such subscribers at the moment are being considered the legal owner of such SIMs that they were told about but they did not differ.
The government has again expedited the process for re-verification of SIMs and as soon as it is completed, the situation of such subscribers will be much vulnerable. In case of any involvement of such SIM in any illegal activity will cause the trouble for the person having the ownership registered in the data of mobile operator.
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