Eight million unregistered SIMs blocked

According to Business Recorder

The initiative taken by Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior to curb unregistered Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) Card culture has resulted in blockage of eight million unidentified connections, said Senator Talha Mehmood, Chairman of the committee, here on Friday.

Addressing a press conference, he said that Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of five mobile companies operating in the country had held a meeting with him regarding the actions taken by their firms. Talha said that the committee held 31 meetings to address the issue. “I have called an urgent meeting of the committee on August 7 to formulate future strategy,” he added.

He said that the CEOs had informed him that their business was adversely affected by the action taken by the committee. The CEO’s also handed over the CDs of 8 million unregistered SIMs for verification, he added. The CDs had been handed over to law enforcing agencies, he further said.

The chairman said that since the start of mobile services in the country, 18 years ago, SIMs were issued without any verification and documentation, which played a major role to vitiate the law and order situation in the country.

Out of these 8 million unregistered SIMs, 1.2 million had been reissued after proper verification and documentation. Whereas, 0.8 million blocked SIMs were given a dead line of July 25 for verifications, he added. He said that in order to find the culprits behind the distribution of unregistered SIMs, special teams raided across the country.

Talha said that the mobile companies were given a time frame till July 31 to complete their work in this respect. “Afterwards, from August 1, we will launch a crackdown against them,” he warned. He said that after completing this task the committee would take action against the dilapidated condition of jails in the country.