Over 30,000 cellphone SIM cards have been cancelled in Jammu and Kashmir and a dozen people, including retailers and dealers of private cellular phone companies, have been arrested after Crime Branch investigators discovered that many pre-paid connections were provided — some made it to the hands of militants and their sympathisers — using names and papers of genuine customers.

Police said subscribers were unaware that additional SIM cards had been issued in their names after misusing documents they had submitted along with the forms while applying for connections.

Cellular phone services were started by the BSNL in J&K in 2003 and private operators started coming in a year later. Until July 2009, it was estimated that the state had over 40 lakh mobile phone subscribers, most with pre-paid services.

“We have constituted a special team to conduct investigations into the matter,” said Crime Branch SSP J P Singh. “We have been asking cellphone operators to provide us records of customers on random basis. We have started contacting them to ascertain that they are genuine customers.”

Alarmed over the discovery of such a racket in this border state, the Department of Telecommunications’ Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) Cell has also begun physical verification of customer documents submitted to it by operators.

“We have been in the state since 2007 but the staff for physical verification of customers documents have been posted here only two months ago,” said an official at the TERM Cell.

TERM Director T K Gupta declined comment, saying it was a “confidential matter”.

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