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As early as September 15, 1998, the DoT had issued a notification regarding subscriber verification. It said that all service providers were required to ensure that no phones were issued without verification of subscribers' proof of residence and identity. Among other things, that notification specifically excluded the sale of pre-activated mobile phones. But nothing happened on those instructions from the DoT side. Pre-activated phones are easily available in all cities.

All the MD/CEOs of the various service providers had to sign this undertaking and it was supposed to be a part of their license agreement. The requirement in the undertaking mentioned that (among other things) the company should not issue any phone connection without proof of identity of the subscriber. Today, however, subscriber application forms are required to be accompanied by proofs of identity and residence. But till now virtually no service provider has signed the undertaking, even though it is supposed to be a part of their license agreement.

The Kaithal Story
It begins with NS Virk, an IPS officer, currently posted as SP in Kaithal, a small town in Haryana. While on deputation with CBI earlier, Virk had made a representation to the DoT about the need for mandatory verification of mobile subscribers, even before the connections were activated. This was borne out of Virk's deep understanding of loopholes in the subscriber verification process, which are harnessed more often than not by anti-social elements and criminals in our society.

In Kaithal, Virk faced the daunting task of dealing with criminals operating through mobile phones from behind the prison walls, thanks to a cellphone tower located in the vicinity of the prison compound. It was obvious that the criminals were getting mobile phone connections based on forged documents.

Things took an unexpected turn when a man called Mahender Singh of Rewari district, came on the verge of getting arrested twice by the Hissar and Gurgaon police respectively. The reason was that his address was found against some mobile numbers that the police were tracking, as part of criminal investigations. The poor plumber, it turned out, did not even possess a single mobile phone. Somebody had stolen his identity for buying phones, or as was later alleged, for selling them.

Two brothers, Ajay and Bali, too were interrogated, as their names surfaced in crime leads emanating from certain mobile phone numbers. Surprisingly, the duo had never even received their election identity cards, which they had submitted as proofs of identity. These events were followed by a spate of complaints from citizens about harassment from certain mobile phone numbers, which later turned out to have been allotted on forged addresses.

Smelling a case of largescale fraud, the subscriber database of Hutchison Essar, Reliance Communications, and Bharti Airtel were summoned by the police. Some interesting results came out of it.

Mahender Singh, the plumber, had at least 17,375 phone connections issued against his name and address. Ajay had 5,338 and Bali had 3,358 such connections. But these figures dwarfed in comparison to the 206,283 phone connections that had been issued in the name of 3,115 people. These were the figures given by only one service provider-Hutchision Essar. Similar cases concerning other service providers also came to light.

Such a thing indicates that the process of registering new subscribers is full of loopholes. It should never have happened in the first place. All service providers are required to inform the law enforcement agencies of any instance when more than 10 phone numbers are issued against a single name. Obviously such discrepancies were not being reported by any of the service providers, at least in the state of Haryana.

According to Virk, the service providers are the perpetrators.

Out of the Closet
Cases were registered against all the major operators. A distributor of Hutch is currently out on bail and sales of Hutch SIM cards have come to a standstill in Kaithal. Nobody is willing to offer any SIM cards without proof of address. If you insist, you will be helpfully directed to the next district. The other service providers continue with a scaled-down business. But it is still not enough to keep two investigating officers in Kaithal busy. They personally call up each new phone subscriber to verify the identity. As a result, many people, even from the SP's office have had their phones disconnected for want of proof of identity, says Virk. They were later restored when the identities were confirmed.

One unexpected result of this strictness in Kaithal was that not a single case of kidnapping for ransom has been reported in the last two months, says Virk. He adds, among all the crimes, kidnapping for ransom is one that cannot happen without the telecom infrastructure. By ensuring only legitimate use of this infrastructure, at least one crime seems to have been effectively curtailed.

Virk says, the allotment of phone numbers on forged documents is a result of high sales targets that get passed down the sales channel. The distributors remain under pressure to show numbers. According to the police, if the distributors fall short of their targets on the last day of each month, the company representatives, in connivance with the distributors, fill up/forge the forms in the names of fictitious subscribers.

The mobile connections were sold on these forged forms the next month, not only to people who demanded pre-activated numbers but also to people who came forward with complete and authentic identification details.

The alleged complicity of the telcos should not be difficult to prove as all the activities had happened in the knowledge of both service providers and the distributors. Till now this should have been an open and shut case against the distributor, as even the financial brunt of the forged connections was borne by him.

The issue became complicated when the companies came out calling foul.

Today all (except one) telecom players are resisting 100% verification of all their subscribers, citing reasons that can be considered legitimate. But who should be blamed for the entire episode?

Sunil Bharti Mittal, CMD, Bharti Airtel recently told VOICE&DATA that “out of the roughly 5 mn new subscribers added each month, more than 3 mn would have never heard a dial tone in their lives. This clearly implies that it may be too much to expect them to have the proofs demanded in the subscriber application form.”

AK Sinha, CMD, BSNL said the telco could only verify that the required documents are present with the application form. “Physically going to the street address to verify each subscriber is not feasible. In any case there are many cases where people change residence after applying for the phone,” he said.

Obviously, if all phones had to pass the Kaithal muster, the growth of telecom subscribers would come to a halt. The question is whether mobile phone verification is essential for security reasons or that it should be controlled/halted in the larger national interest of promoting India's telecom revolution.

The issue is simple. There is a regulation, which says that subscriber verification is compulsory, and selling pre-activated mobile phones is a crime. The court is yet to decide if verification of phone numbers is the job of the police. But one thing is for sure, that somebody has to do the job of enforcing regulations. If these regulations harm the nation or any of its interests then these laws need to be amended. Expecting the law enforcement agencies to go soft on any regulation/law is not the solution.

Hutch is party to a writ filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. They say that these verifications are outside the ambit of the police. The case will come up for hearing on August 4, 2006. Hope the case decides the name of the regulator.

Mittal hit the issue on its head when he said, a telco can only provide telecom services; it cannot be expected to do the job of a security agency.

Alok Singh
aloks@cybermedia.co.in
Gyana Ranjan Swain
gyanas@cybermedia.co.in

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