A woman's complaint about obscene messages sent via Whatsapp from an unknown number led the Kolkata police to unearth illegal sale of SIM cards in the districts of the state.
Two persons from Kalyani in Nadia district were arrested in this connection.
Acting on a complaint by a city-based middle-aged lady, the cyber cell department of the police found that a SIM was registered in the name of Uttar Dinajpur resident Bimal Singh, Special Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Pallab Kanti Ghosh told reporters here today.
"The tower location was detected in Kalyani and we found that the sender was a minor. The strange part was that he procured the SIM from a grocery store," Ghosh said.
For the requisite documents - photocopy of a voter identity card and a photograph allegedly belonging to Bimal Singh - were submitted, he said.
"We also found that both the retailer and the distributor were also from the same place. Surprisingly the distributor had no trade license and the retailer also had no proper documents to do the business," he said.
Proprietor of the distributing agency Tapan Kirtaniya (35) and retailer Abhijit Banerjee both have been arrested under IPC 467 (Forgery of valuable security), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document). Both have been remanded to police custody till June 29, the ACP said.
In fact, the police would talk to the service provider on how the number was allotted to a person without proper validation of documents, he said.
Since the sender of obscene photographs is a minor, the police has not arrested him.
