Maharashtra man accused of running illegal telephone exchange jumps to death

Thane, Maharashtra: One of the accused in running an illegal telephone exchange in Maharashtra's Thane jumped off a building to death as police were closing in on to nab him.

The Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and Thane Police detained many members of the gang that was running the exchange in the Bhiwandi area here, news agency ANI reported.

Officials arrived late evening to raid the place after receiving information about the illegal telephone facility on the fifth floor of a building in Gauri Pada in the Bhiwandi area, according to the report.

Officials said reportedly said that when they swooped on the gang, ‘One of the accused jumped from the roof of the building to avoid being caught by the ATS and died. The body was sent for postmortem’.

After seizing all goods stored there, the police are on the lookout for the owner of the flat as further investigation is underway.

In similar incident in July last year, Moradabad police arrested two people who were converting international calls to local calls setting up an illegal telephone exchange.

The accused used to convert VoIP calls into GSM calls through SIM boxes calls for Indians living in Saudi Arabia, according to the report.

Around 550 sim cards and ₹ 63,000 were recovered from the accused identified as Mohammad Kaleem and his brother Mohammad Mehraj.

Mohammad Kaleem reportedly said when he was in Saudi Arabia a man taught him to earn money by converting international calls into local calls.