STF arrests man involved in death threat to Banda jail SP after Mukhtar Ansari’s death
Wednesday, 01 May 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) arrested a man who operated an illegal telephone exchange service in Dehradun through which the superintendent of police of Banda jail in Meerut received a death threat hours after the death of gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari. Ansari was lodged in Banda jail from April 2021 till his death on March 28 this year. The senior superintendent of police of STF Ayush Agrawal said that an FIR was lodged by the SP of Banda jail Viresh Raj Sharma in Banda Kotwali that he received a call on his official number that lasted 14 seconds in which an unknown person issued death threats to him and used abusive language.
The police there found out that the call was made from a landline number from Dehradun and contacted authorities here. The STF started the investigation and arrested Anurag Gupta late on Monday who was operating an illegal telephone exchange service to connect international calls to Indian numbers via the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system. “He started this work last year in August in association with a woman Amanda from China for which he used to get a commission.
The accused has claimed that he met Amanda while he was working for a China-based telecom company. He said that he initially took 500 connections from the Jio company in August 2023 but they disconnected them in December after becoming suspicious of his illegal activities. He then took the Primary Rate Interface (PRI) line and a router from BSNL company in December to send the calls received from the customers of the Snow Fly company in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau to the country,” the SSP said. He stated that about 50,000 to 60,000 calls were made daily through the illegal server of the accused. He was reportedly getting Rs four to Rs six for each call. “Gupta has confessed regarding the death threat call to Banda jail SP that he received a call from Canada to his server that he diverted to the SP’s number. He has claimed not to have knowledge about messages of the phone calls that are diverted through his server across the country. He has also gone to jail for similar offences in Bihar and Haryana and was out on bail.
“There are several points that need to be investigated like why BSNL did not disconnect the lines like Jio due to illegal activities. It is also a potential case of national security. A case has been registered in the Vasant Vihar police station that will investigate this matter further,” the SSP added.
