Techie made ransom calls from broken SIM card

The 21-year-old hardware engineer, who made ransom calls to the family of a missing mentally-challenged boy to earn some quick money to pay a job consultancy firm, had made the calls from a broken SIM card he found from a road. This has once again brought to light the danger of distribution of SIM cards without proper verification of documents.

“The accused made about 60 threat and extortion calls to the family of the missing minor,” said inspector Vinayak Vast.

The accused, Vijay Birambole, used to keep his phone switched off after every call. Vast said it was found that the documents on which the card was procured were of a Govandi hutment, which was demolished few months ago. Cops managed to zero in on Birambole, after monitoring his call records.

Preliminary investigations have revealed that the accused needed Rs40,500 to give the money to a consultancy firm for getting a job. So he came up with the idea of making money by giving ransom call after seeing posters of the missing boy at a railway station.