LAHORE: The cellular companies have asked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to stop police from harassing their franchises and retailers in different districts of Punjab on the pretext of checking sale of unregistered and illegal SIMs.

`Since all five telecom operators Mobilink, Ufone, Telenor, Warid and Zong have introduced biome-tric system, there is no possibility of sale of illegal and unregistered SIMs anymore. But the police in different districts like Faisalabad, Sargodha and Gujranwala have been harassing the franchisees and retailers of different operators,` an official of a leading operator told Dawn here on Wednesday.

`We have asked the PTA to take up the matter with the police concerned,` he said, adding it was because of ignorance of police officials concerned who were notaware that cellular phone companies, on the PTA directives, had adopted a `fool proof` system of SIMs sales.

Under the biometric system, launched a few months ago, a SIM cannot be sold and activated without registration and matching thumb impression of the subscriber withNationalDatabase Registration Authority (Nadra) records.

`A franchisee or retailer cannot sell a SIM on its own to anyone.

Even it can`t use a SIM of its outletwithout getting it activated through the due process or Standard Operating System (SOP) prescribed by PTA for operators., the official said, adding the cellular operators had spent more than Rs3 billion on installation of biometric verification system at their franchises and retailers outlets.

`We have also invested $1.12 billion to acquire licenses of 3G and 4G technologies,` he added.

PTA spokesman was not available for a comment.