illegal mobile SIMs are sold for just Rs 10.

A SIM card issued in your name may be in the hands of a stranger, perhaps a criminal or even Maoist leader Kishanji. Goaded by
cut-throat competition, a section of telecom service providers is encouraging distributors to sell preactivated SIM cards
, despite a strict no-no by Trai, thereby allowing terrorists and criminals to exploit a security loophole.

SIMs activated on documents of bona fide customers, who have no clue about the racket, are being hawked for a mere Rs 10 on the streets of Bengal. On Sunday morning, 80 such preactivated GSM SIM cards were seized from a roadside stall in Serampore, Hooghly. TOI got five of them and even used one to prove it was preactivated.