The Telecom mun ications Regulatory Commission was yesterday trying to track down the miscreants who caused panic among thousands of people by warning them through SMS that taking certain mobile phone calls or text messages might cause brain damage.
TRC Director Gen eral Anusha Pelpita said all mobile operators had been instructed to filter the warning text messages and more than 50,000 had been filtered by noon yesterday.
The message said: "Don't attend to calls from 7888308001, 931 6048121, 9876266211, 9888 854137, 9876 715587. These numbers come in red colours. U may get brain hemrage
due to high frequency. 27 persons died just receiving the call".
According to Mr. Pelpita the authorities believe that this text message might have been forwarded from India to a local mobile number and had been circulated rapidly. "The numbers are from an Indian Vodafone sim. There is no need to panic as it is a baseless text message. But we are tracing the local sender and planning to take legal
action to prevent such incidents in the future," he said.
Meanwhile, the TRC also sent an SMS to all mobile users saying there was no danger from any calls.
This panic-message first came a few days before SMS voting for well-known superstar show, raising speculation that it might have been a move to disrupt SMS voting on which the winner was chosen. |
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