Man held for illegally routing internet calls on Indian numbers

Noida, Aug. 3: A call centre was busted here for allegedly routing international internet calls to Indian phone numbers by illegally bypassing the legal gateway for such connections besides causing revenue loss to the government, police said on Monday.

Sumit Kumar Bisdah, 27, who was running the call centre, was arrested from Laxmi Nagar in Delhi after an FIR was lodged in Noida on a complaint by officials of the department of telecommunications (DoT), government of India, they said.

Besides the revenue loss, the call centre had posed a threat to national security by the act, Additional deputy commissioner of police, Noida, Ranvijay Singh said, after a joint raid by the local Sector 20 police and a DoT team.

“Based on the information, the illegal set-up was tracked at two houses in Sector 2 and Sector 8 of Noida. Equipment and evidences were collected from the two spots and based on that, Bisdah was arrested from Laxmi Nagar in Delhi,” a police spokesperson said.

“He had illegally installed the telecom setup and used his system to divert voice calls from international numbers to Indian phone numbers, bypassing the legal connection gateway,” the spokesperson said.

“His acts have caused heavy loss to the Telecom department and the Indian government. His illegal act could have also jeopardised national security,” the police official added. Additional DCP Singh said licence was provided to the call centre for a limited activity but it was running more than permissible channels.

Discrepancies were found in their documents during verification done by DoT technical officials, he said.