How an illegal telephone exchange in Hyderabad helped ISI snoop on the Indian Army

New Delhi, Dec 29: The busting of an illegal telephone exchange in Hyderabad has brought out further details on how the ISI is looking to tap into sensitive information relating to the Indian Army.

The Telangana police made the arrest following inputs from the Military Intelligence, Jammu and Kashmir. Following the raids at Nallakunta, the police seized laptops, computers, and 53 illegally procured SIM cards.

The intention behind setting up the exchange was to enable the Pakistanis to make calls to Indian Army officials. The exchange was set up in a bid to mask the numbers as the Indian officials would not take calls from Pakistan numbers.

This illegal exchange enabled callers from Pakistan to call Indian numbers by hiding their identity and also displaying an Indian number to the receivers. Officials tell OneIndia that they found that the accused persons had used SIM boxes, a modem-like device and also the illegally procured SIM cards.

The calls were made using Voice of Internet Protocol and then same would land at this telephone exchange. Once the VoIP landed at the exchange, it would get converted into a regular telecom call.

The MI kept a tab on the exchange after it grew suspicious of the VoIP exchange being run in Hyderabad. It was found that this exchange was being used to make calls from Pakistan to security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir in a bid to extract sensitive information. The caller from Pakistan would pose as a senior Army officer and then try and extract information, the MI learnt.