4 held for stealing data from call centre

When four call centre employees quit their jobs to start a call centre independently, it seemed like the start of a success story to be penned by an ‘enterprising’ bunch.

When four call centre employees quit their jobs to start a call centre independently, it seemed like the start of a success story to be penned by an ‘enterprising’ bunch.

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However, three months down the line, the Cyber police arrested them for allegedly stealing data from their earlier workplace.

The four accused, Murtaza Asgar Ali, 32, Misbah Sayyad Shaikh, 36, Mehboob Shamshuddin Khan, 29, and Ayub Ahmed Raza Khan, 24, were employed at a Sakinaka-based call centre.

Earlier this year Ali, an assistant operations manager with the company for four years, resigned from work. Following his resignation, Ayub, a quality team leader, Khan, a process trainee, and Shaikh, a customer relationship executive, also resigned, said an officer from Cyber police station at Bandra Kurla Complex.

Within a few months, they started a call centre at Kamani in Ghatkopar.

“The staff of the former call centre found that someone had been calling up the leads (list of probable customers) they had stored in their database,” said an officer.

“They found out that the leads were transferred by the accused to their personal e-mail addresses when they were employed at the call centre. the management then approached us,” said senior inspector Nandkishore More of cyber police station.

The police booked the accused under IPC sections 408 (criminal breach of trust by servant/clerk), 34 (common intention) and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.

Investigations revealed that apart from stealing the data, they had also allegedly hacked into their employer’s e-mail account.

Joint commissioner of police (crime) Himanshu Roy said, "During the induction process itself, employees should be cautioned about such malpractices. Companies should also install security software and conduct random checks to avoid such data loss."