KCCI Chairman Businessmen Group & former President Siraj Kassam Teli and Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Mian Abrar Ahmad welcomed and appreciated the decision to stop cellular services by Interior Minister Rehman Malik in Karachi and other major cities during Eid to control/ eliminate chances of terrorist/criminal activities using cellular technology/ mobile phones, it was indeed a timely decision and have saved lot of lives of Pakistani citizens. The decision of Interior Ministry to stop prepaid cellular services in order to ensure genuine identities of subscribers/ users to control crimes is also appreciated.
They said that it has been proposed and demanded by Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry to the Interior Minister to block all those SIMs being stolen/unauthenticated and wrongly issued; also block imported mobile phones with same IMEI number with immediate effect; ensure service providers to provide details of all such phones to FIA; No SIM shall be activated if mobile phone has no IMEI number or proper identification of CNIC and new SIM will only be issued through postal services and mechanism should be developed to deliver new SIM through courier/ registered post at purchaser’s address according to CNIC.
Finally, Interior Minister realized the genuineness of demands of KCCI who at times had personally admitted and also declared root cause of rampant crimes in Karachi the mobile phone sets having identical IMEI numbers and unauthenticated/ unregistered SIMs being used by criminal elements. Interior Minister Rehman Malik while visiting to KCCI during last two years gave commitment to implement the demands raised by KCCI for the larger interest of Pakistan and its citizens, they stated.
They said that mobile phone is used in more than 80 percent of criminal activities therefore, as per the demands of KCCI and commitment of Federal Interior Minister the demands must be effectively implemented without any further delay and we expect and hope that decision to block prepaid services will be implemented and no further delay in this case will be made as the lives of Pakistani citizens are more valuable than any cellular mobile system.
