Former army captain held for getting call records illegally

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police Crime Branch have arrested two persons, including a former short service officer in the Army, for allegedly illegally procuring and selling

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police Crime Branch have arrested two persons, including a former short service officer in the Army, for allegedly illegally procuring and selling call detail records (CDR).

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The officer, Captain DK Giri, has reportedly been running a detective agency in Hyderabad since 1978, and got into the snooping business by accessing and selling CDRs only last year.

Giri also has an elaborate website that claims that his agency, Sharp Detectives, can also deal with high-level sensitive cases. The website that introduces him as ‘Alexander’ also claims that he was awarded the Ratna Shiromani Award in the Parliament Club, for professional excellence and scientific approach in private Investigations. He is presently the chairman of Andhra Pradesh Chapter of The Association of Private Detectives in India( APDI ).

According to the police, Giri and one Ravi Reddy had been procuring CDRs with the connivance of some telecom agencies and selling them at different rates. At present, they were only operational in Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, joint commissioner of police( crime branch) Ravindra Singh Yadav confirmed.

Giri was reportedly commissioned in the Indian Army, in 11 Gorkha Rifles, in 1972.

“His website claims that he has over a dozen private investigators classified into categories — A, B and C—depending upon the kind of investigation and risk involved.

During investigation it was found that Giri had been procuring CDRs for businessmen, who wanted to snoop over their rivals, brokers, housewives and husbands. For each CDR, Giri charged between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000.

The police have taken the agents, who provided CDRs to Giri, in remand and are questioning them.

Six persons were earlier arrested including a UP police constable in July, posted with surveillance cell at IG office for accessing CDRs and selling them to detective agencies.