Mumbai: The Maharashtra anti-corruption bureau (ACB) continued its crackdown on illegal telephone exchanges and in a separate case, made the fifth arrest, that is, of an operator in Latur.
The arrested accused has been identified as Mahesh Malbhage (27), who was running a similar exchange from his shop located in Valandi village, Devni district.
Earlier, the ATS arrested Shankar Birajdar (33) and Ravi Sabde (27) on similar charges from Prakash Nagar area in Latur.
The series of raids on these illegal telephone exchanges began after the military intelligence wing got wind of suspicious calls being made from Pakistan to Jammu & Kashmir that were being routed from Latur.
These voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) calls were being illegally routed to J&K through local mobile numbers.
Malbhage was on ATS’ radar ever since officials conducted the first raid on June 16.
Preliminary investigation revealed that he began operating the illegal telephone exchange with Birajdar’s help, making his role even more suspicious. A day after the raids in Latur, the ATS had conducted similar raids in Telangana, Hyderabad, and arrested Ibrahim Rashid (36) and Abdul Faiz (37).
An ATS officer said, “The questioning revea-led that Birajdar was the common contact who helped even them in setting up a similar illegal exchange. He even provided several SIM cards for the functioning of the exchange.” The ATS searched Malbhage’s shop and seized two illegal gateway machines and 14 SIM cards that were being used for routing calls.
