Odisha STF arrest man who supplied SIMs to Mangaluru blast accused

Bhubaneswar: A man arrested in the ‘OTP sharing scam’ busted by the Odisha Sepcial Task Force (STF) is found to have link with the Mangaluru cooker bomb blast case.

Jai Narayan Pankaj, IG, Special Task Force Odisha, on Sunday, said the STF arrested a fifth person- Pritam Kar (31)- in OTP sharing scam case who had links to Pakistani ISI agents. He also supplied the SIM and debit cards to the main accused in the Mangaluru cooker bomb case.

“It is also learned that the SIM and debit card used by the main accused in last year’s Mangalore auto blast was given by this person (Pritam). He was also in direct touch with at least two Pakistani ISI agents and met them physically and received over Rs 1.5 lakh for selling OTPs/mule accounts/digital wallets,” Jai Narayan Pankaj said.

“Earlier 4 people were arrested. They used to generate OTPs using pre-activated SIM cards and sold the OTPs to cyber criminals including Pakistani Intelligence Operatives (PIOs) & ISI agents,” he added.