SC orders to set up task force to prevent illegal SIMs

KARACHI: The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) resumed hearing the Karachi law and order suo moto implementation case on Friday (today) where the court ordered to form a special task force to seize the working of illegal mobile phone SIMs in the metropolis, Geo News reported.

A five-judge larger bench of the SC headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was hearing the case at its Karachi Registry. During proceedings, Chairman Pakistan telecommunication Authority (PTA) Ismail Shah gave a multi-media presentation regarding solutions to curb the use of illegal SIMs.

According to the details, the chairman said that not more than two SIMs will be activated on a single mobile phone or the IMEI number while a single user will not be allowed to use/activate more than five SIMs.

At the first stage, all service providers will shortlist the users using more than ten SIMs. Furthermore, import of mobile phones without the IMEI numbers will not be allowed, for which the Custom authority’s cooperation is needed, Chairman PTA added.

Ismail Shah told the bench that PTA will finalise the recommendations by December 17, 2013.

On this, the court ordered to form a task force headed by the PTA chairman and submit its final recommendations on December 17.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry remarked that the court will review the report presented by the task force after three weeks, that is, during the next hearing.

He further inquired about the machines used to activate the deactivated SIMs. Replying to this, the chairman PTA told that such machines were recovered from the illegal service providers and IG Sindh Police Shahid Hayat has recovered 20 such machines.

On Thursday, the bench ordered PTA chairman and cellular companies to provide a temporary solution by today which prevents criminals from using illegal SIMs.

Chief Justice Chaudhry remarked that the sale of SIMs from unlicensed outlets should be stopped.

IG Sindh Shahid Hayat presented the Chinese made machine which was being used to activate SIMs before the Supreme Court. He informed the court that this machine was being used to activate SIMs which had been deactivated.

Hayat added that during the targeted operation, 3,000 active SIMs had been recovered. According to the Additional IG, the SIMS were issued on data obtained from voter lists and would then be used in criminal activity.

Hayat told the court that if this issue was resolved, 50 percent of kidnapping for ransom cases could be solved.