Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission to block SIMs with fake addresses.

The cabinet committee on law and order on Thursday instructed the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission to block mobile connections with fake addresses used in criminal activities.
   ‘We have decided to ask the commission to block mobile SIMs if the addresses of the holders of the connections are found fake,’ said the home secretary, Abdul Karim, after a review meeting on law and order chaired by the law and information adviser, Mainul Hosein, at the home ministry.
   The law enforcement agencies will provide the commission with information on connections used in criminal activities, said the officials present at the meeting.
   The home ministry officials said the decision to block mobile SIMs used in wrongdoing was made as complaints have been lodged with the law enforcement agencies about receiving mobile calls in which money have been demanded or death and other types of threat have been made.
   The number of mobile users in Bangladesh is around 32 million provided by the six operators, but most such connections were not properly registered for lack of a clear-cut policy.
   The regulatory commission in February 2006, however, made a regulation making provisions for the subscribers to provide certain bits of information at the time of purchase of connections. It also instructed the mobile operators to re-register the connections bought before February 2006. The re-registration process of about 1 million subscribers was later delayed.

   The commission in July instructed the operators to complete the re-registration of the mobile connections within two months, beginning in August 16, in accordance with the regulation to help the intelligence agencies to keep track of mobile users and to check, through tapping, whether they use them in unlawful activities. The commission later extended the re-registration deadline by two more months, scheduled to expire on December 16.
   The commission in July also imposed a fine of $10 on each SIM for mobile operators if it finds the operators selling connections without registering the subscribers.