KARACHI: The Pakistan Rangers in Sindh province have warned all the mobile phone companies that their respective executives will be booked for terrorism if a phone connection sold in violation of set rules is found to have been used in any terror activity, it emerged yesterday.
In a letter sent to the regional headquarters of Mobilink, Ufone, Telenor, Warid and Zong, the Sindh chief minister and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the Rangers came up with the strong measures to counter the ‘flaws’ which they said were causing ‘deterioration of law and order situation’.
The warning has caused consternation among the cellular companies business managers who believe that such a ‘tone and approach’ may hamper the confidence of the foreign operators who have invested billions of dollars in the country, while they insist that they have already been offering their best possible cooperation for the counter-terrorism actions.
“Taking stock of terrorist activities, it has been revealed that illegal SIMs are used by them,” stated the letter sent by the Rangers.
The concerns expressed by the paramilitary force seemed genuine and quite effective as they have been raised time and again over the past several years by the law enforcement and security agencies. Investigations into terrorist activities and major criminal incidents often lead to the finding that illegally obtained cellphone connections were used to complete the particular job.
The same point was highlighted in the fresh letter sent by the Rangers who blamed the cellular companies for their ‘uncooperative attitude’ ultimately affecting work of the law-enforcement agencies.
“Cellular companies have shown uncooperative attitude to all the complaints and efforts in controlling use of illegal SIMs and improving law and order situation,” the letter said. “The attitude shows that cellular companies are impellent to the organised crimes, consequently helping in deterioration of law and order situation”.
Internews
