Odisha Police To Invoke NSA Again OTP-Sharing Scam Prime Accused With ISI Links

Bhubaneswar: The Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha Crime Branch has decided to invoke the National Security Act (NSA) against the mastermind of OTP-sharing scam Pathanisamant Lenka, who was also an ITI teacher.

According to sources, Lenka’s links with two Pakistani intelligence agents have been established. He was in direct contact with one Guddu Kumar and went into hiding after the latter was arrested by West Bengal Special Task Force in December last year for passing on sensitive information, including photographs of certain strategic locations in north Bengal, to his handlers in Pakistan. The STF had also ascertained Lenka’s link with a Patna-based woman, who was arrested by Rajasthan police recently for her alleged ties with some Pakistani agents.

Lenka and his two aides – Saroj Nayak (26) and Soumya Pattnaik (19) were arrested for procuring pre-activated SIM cards and selling OTPs to Pakistani intelligence operatives.

Also Read: Arrested Odisha ITI Teacher Had Links With ISI Agent Nabbed In Bengal

The STF is likely to take Lenka on remand from Saturday for further questioning and dig deeper into the case by bringing telecom service providers (TSP) under scanner since misuse of fake/pre-activated SIMs had become a serious issue having bearing on the national security, the sources further said.

On May 17, the Crime Branch had convened a meeting with Officials of Department of Telecommunication and TSPs – BSNL, Airtel, Jio and Voda-Idea (VIL). During the meeting, the following points were suggested:
1. For tele verification, call should be made to the phone number to which is Aadhaar linked.
2. Dealers having permanent shops should only be allowed to sell SIMs.
3. The TSPs should devise a mechanism for the customers to complain about the fake SIM and to get it deactivated.
4. Those Point Of Sales (POS) who are caught violating the SOP of SIM activation should be blacklisted.
5. TSPs should create awareness among the customers regarding TAFCOP tool that enables the customers to verify and ascertain as to how many any SIMs are in use in their name with/without their knowledge.
6. TSPs should have internal surveillance mechanism over those activated SIMs lying dormant continuously but are being recharged regularly.

Notably, 20,000 SIMs along with cash of Rs.14 lakh were seized in May 2022, SIM box machine with large number of SIMs at Baripada in September 2022 and another seizure of 17,000 SIMs at Bhubaneswar. The Department of Telecommunication (DOT) had conducted verification of SIMs using ASTR software and some of those with fake address were still active.

The TSPs have been asked to strengthen their internal vigilance mechanism and conduct regular checks and verification and deactivate such sims which are prone to be misused. The Department of Telecom (DoT) officials will regularly provide inputs to police department against such fraudulent activities, the sources added.