A case of mobile personality disorder

Kaithal (Haryana): After freebies and next-to-free connections, cell phone service providers competing for the same subscribers may have just gone overboard.

A routine murder investigation led the Haryana Police to uncover just how these service providers are pushing up their sales.

Nishan Singh, a resident of a small village near Kaithal in Haryana is a farmer.

And he has not one or two but 290 cell phone connections. Though it sounds improbable but the records of the cell phone service provider Hutch prove it.

The truth is that except for a single prepaid connection that Nishan actually owns, the remaining 289 connections have been sold to different people using his identity.

"I am very relieved that the truth has been discovered and appeal to the government to ensure that the other connections in my name are cancelled," says Nishan Singh.

Nishan Singh is one of the many victims of identity theft. Using his personal details more than 290 Hutch prepaid connections have been sold in the past few months.

But his is not the only case. Rajesh Kumar, another unsuspecting Reliance subscriber has several phone numbers ending with same digits issued to his name.

That means that anyone of those people using Rajesh’s identity can use the phone for anything for instance to make an extortion call.

The Kaithal police have registered FIRs against Reliance Infocom and Hutchinson Essar Ltd.

The companies are accused of violating regulations of Department of Telecommunication (DoT) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Like verifying the identity of every prepaid subscriber.

And if more than 10 connections are issued to any single person or address, the government has to be informed

Also if these conditions are not complied with, the government can impose a financial penalty or even terminate the licence

"Ninety-five per cent of the cell phones being used by criminals come through this method," says Superintendent of Police, Kaithal Vavdeep Singh.

The Kaithal scam is bound to have nationwide ramification.

And if these charges are proved against the cell phone service providers, they stand to lose their licences.

Which means not just a loss of revenue but also a loss of connectivity for the subscribers.