CROSS CONNECTION Raksha Bandhan Rajput Chandigarh WhatsApp A 56-year-old civilian from Mumbai is being hounded with at least a dozen calls per day on his mobile phone, from people wishing to speak with the Indian Army’s Southern Command that is headquartered in Pune.Jai Prakash Tripathi works in the software sales industry and resides in Bhayander, a suburb of western Mumbai. Happy with a simple, routine life till six months ago, Tripathi now has no idea why his number flashes as the point of contact for the Southern Command — in fact, he rues that he gets 12-15 calls on average for persons wishing to contact this army HQ.Speaking to Mirror, Tripathi shared, “I have been getting calls from people across the country. They seek information on recruitment, vacancies, training, contact numbers and lots more. I just tell them they have dialed the wrong number and I have no connection with whom they wish to contact.”The trend got more irksome on the festival ofin August, when Tripathi received at least 100 calls in a day — even worse was that on Independence Day, he received some 250 calls, and strangers also flooded his phone inbox with greetings for the occasion. He explained, “Several people in the country send rakhis to soldiers on Raksha Bandhan. I received so many calls that day that I had to switch off the phone to be able to celebrate with my family. I had to politely tell strangers that I could not connect them with any soldier on my number.”The most recent call Tripathi received is from a colonel-rank officer in Maharashtra — when he learnt the number belongs to a civilian, he apologised and hung up, Tripathi narrated.Mirror also spoke to a few callers who have contacted Tripathi. Said Chaitanyafrom, “My son was selected into the army’s Short Service Commission (SSC) and posted at Southern Command HQ. However, we are awaiting his orders. So, I called up the number I found on Google to speak with an official in this regard. We had received two other numbers for the HQ viagroups, but believed this one was more reliable.” On the other hand, Vivek Biarat from Pune had called Tripathi for a more specific query. “I wanted to contact a well-known doctor in the dental section of the military hospital, so I called up what I thought was Southern Command HQ thinking they could help,” he shared.While this issue began earlier in 2018, Tripathi has actually been using this same number for the last 15 years. Interestingly, no one from his family is connected with the army or other military establishments, deepening the mystery behind his unusual burden. The businessman suspects that during a short stint in Pune for around three to four months earlier this year, his number may have been mistakenly appropriated. Besides, Google, the number also appears on Justdial as that for the Southern Command.Meanwhile, the latter has no clue about their misrepresentation on search engines. When questioned, no official response was forthcoming immediately from the army, but an officer shared on condition of anonymity, “There is no mobile number for the Southern Command. If one is being fed online as ours, we will look into it.”Army officials were also of the opinion that this cross connection isn’t serious when it comes to recruitments and other general queries — however, when inquiries possibly of a sensitive nature are being made by defence officials, the HQ should be aware of the existence of a false number on digital forums.

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