International illegal telephone exchange busted in Patna

NEW DELHI: In a major breakthrough, a joint team of Bihar police and the Department of Telecom (DOT) busted an international illegal telephone exchange in Bihar's capital city Patna on Friday.

As per Bihar police officials, the “exchange” registered a lot of traffic from Dubai, Middle East and Pakistan. As the kingpin of the racket is yet to be nabbed, the intelligence agencies are finding out the possibilities of a terror and hawala angle in it.

As per police officials, two persons -- Rajiv Banik, 40 (Durgapur in West Bengal) and Adnan Shami, 34 (Bokaro, Jharkhand) -- have been arrested and being interrogated by investigating agencies. The team has also recovered laptops, routers, PBX set and other electronic gadgets.

According to officials, the illegal exchange was busted with the help of two DOT officials —KN Rai, director security and Rajiv Ranjan, assistant divisional engineer --- who revealed that the miscreants were staying at a rented flat at Dwarka Lane in Salimpur Ahra

locality under Gandhi Maidan police station.

During inquiry, the DOT found that the scamsters used to route international Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) calls, mostly from UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait through

local landline numbers.

On the incident, in-charge city SP (central) D Amarkesh said that police also seized four PRI gateways that handled 240 calls simultaneously.

A case has been lodged against the accused on the basis of the statement of Sunil Kumar Singh, SHO of the Gandhi Maidan police station under sections of IPC, Indian Telegram Act and IT act.