Kondhwa, 30th August 2024: The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the state has raided illegal telephone exchanges in the Kondhwa area of Pune. This action has been taken on Thursday (29th August) afternoon. A person named Naushad Ahmed Siddiqui (32), a resident of Bhiwandi has been arrested in this case. The ATS has expressed its suspicion that anti-national work is being carried out under the pretext of the exchange of phone calls for several days.

According to a report by ‘The Indian Express’, the Anti Terrorism Squad has informed about the said action through a circular. Reportedly, the accused Naushad Ahmed Siddiqui had come to Pune from Bhiwandi eight months ago. He lived in an apartment in the Meeta Nagar area of Kondhwa. It was there that he started an illegal telephone exchange.

Meanwhile, the ATS had received secret information that such an illegal telephone exchange was going on in Pune. Based on this information, the squad raided the respective apartment in the Meeta Nagar area on Thursday. In the said operation, 3,788 SIM cards, nine Wi-Fi routers, an antenna, an inverter, and a laptop along with seven SIM boxes from various companies have been seized.

During this operation, the police arrested the accused Naushad and he was produced in court on Thursday. This time the court has remanded the accused to ATS custody. Also, the ATS is investigating what was the real purpose behind running such an illegal telephone exchange.

The ATS further stated that the preliminary investigation revealed that the accused was not highly educated and started this telephone exchange only for money. Apart from this, the ATS has also informed that the investigation is going on as to how the financial transaction took place, from where the accused bought Simbox and more than 3,000 SIM cards despite the ban. ATS has predicted that some foreign nationals may also be involved in the entire case.