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| Who put 4 million users into SIM trouble –SIM providers! | | | ZAFAR CHOUDHARY
Jammu, Oct 9: It marks a rare occasion when the present coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir has come with a strong opposition to a decision of the central government and it also comes as the first occasion when the ruling National Conference and the arch opposition Peoples Democratic Party are in same bitter mood on the issue.
The banning of pre-paid mobile phone connections has brought almost all on the same platform in Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Home Minister P Chidambram’s statement, “I am sure people trust my decision based on strong reasons”, is still not being contradicted much. Those who have lost their channels and more perversely those who have lost a promising source of livelihood are questioning –“are we all terrorists”. This question is not coming from a handful of people but from 35 to 40 lakh strong subscribers in Jammu and Kashmir who constitute more than one-third of the total population of the state.
Who is to be blamed for this havoc wrecked in Jammu and Kashmir which has rightly been described by the Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti as “renewed signs of trust deficit”. Taking a network of communication suddenly out of the hands of nearly four million subscribers is certainly a worst manifestation of the trust deficit and a far more blatant decision than the Advanian era of internet ban in this state on security pretexts.
While the questions do the rounds on the Home Minister’s autocratic offensive in Jammu and Kashmir, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah appears to have touched upon the nerve of basic culprits who have put four millions peoples in the state in utter inconvenience and disappointment. Writhing in anger over the arbitrary ban, the Chief Minister today observed that cell-phone service providers are mainly responsible for this chaos.
Not refusing that the cell phones may have been used by militants and other subversive forces, the Chief Minister said “the move punishes genuine users too”. Omar pointed out that people should not be punished for the lapse clearly at the level of service providers who issued SIM cards without due credential verification of the subscribers.
The Union Home Ministry had banned prepaid mobile phone connections in the state beginning November 01, over "serious security concerns", following reports that militants were getting prepaid SIM cards on fake identities. Following crackdowns by the Police and its Crime Branch it has been widely reported that vendors of many cell phone service providers blatantly compromised with verification guidelines while issuing SIM cards to outsmart the race with their competitors. Dozens of such vendors working as franchisees of different companies have been arrested over past few months but none of the executive of the companies were reached by Police to question their ignorance or oversight in vendor sales without verification.
Chief Minister says that the mishandling of the issuance of prepaid SIM cards by a small service group should not affect the large number of genuine users of the facility adding that State Government was informed by Government of India about its intension in this regard. “We were told that something like that was being contemplated”, he added.
Omar said that he would sit with Government of India including Home Ministry to resolve the issue as the blanket ban on the use of prepaid SIM cards is not the answer to the issues relating to the security and other important aspects. “Jammu and Kashmir has to be kept at par with other states of the country in respect of use of prepaid SIM cards”, he said asserting that the service groups should be made responsible for ensuring verifications of documents as per the requirements. “We cannot put to inconvenience a large number of genuine users for the fault of service groups”, he added.
The Home Ministry, while enforcing the ban, had said that the move "comes in the wake of reports that proper verification is not being done while providing such prepaid mobile connections by the service providers and vendors. In some cases, a single person had been issued with multiple number of connections".
The J&K police early this year had found that an IED was triggered in North Kashmir using a mobile phone that had a SIM card issued in the name a senior Army officer in North Kashmir's Baramulla district.
"Fake documents and identity cards are being used by the vendors, particularly in the case of prepaid connections. This situation has given rise to serious security concerns. Hence, the decision stands," the ministry had said.
The use of mobile phones to explode IEDs is one of the easiest and widespread means of attacking security forces as the militant after planting the IED can explode it from miles away.
Dr Farooq Abdullah, who holds the charge of the Union Ministry for New and Renewable Energy, too had Home Minister P Chidambaram to reconsider the continuation of the ban on prepaid mobile services in J&K. According to Farooq, the ban on prepaid services had created anger all across the state.
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