Replacement Needed. This iphone is not able to complete the activation process and needs to be replaced. Please visit your nearest apple store or authorized service center.

Probably will never ever think of buying a locked phone from AT&T cause its one of the worst system integrations ever that these companies could think of.

The entire problem started when I put in a request with at&t to unlock my iphone 4s (ios7) which did get approved. I performed the entire instructions they asked me to do, which is to backup and restore. After doing those instructions my iphone gave me an error message below

The SIM card inserted in this iPhone does not appear to be supported.

The SIM card that you currently installed in this iPhone is from a carrier that is not supported under the activation policy that is currently assigned by the activation server. This is not a hardware issue with the iPhone. Please insert another SIM card from a supported carrier or request that this iPhone be unlocked by your carrier. Please contact Apple for more information.

Basically saying that at&t hasn't still unlocked the iphone which a really helpful apple executive was able to confirm. I initiated another unlock process from at&t in order to unlock the iphone, just to be sure that its not something wrong from my end. The nice at&t lady stayed on chat with me to unlock the iphone step my step while I was calling the apple tech too. And the apple tech confirmed again that the iphone is locked to at&t.

Now, just a few minutes ago I tried another restore to see if any progress is being made and to my surprise I got an error message saying

Replacement Needed. This iphone is not able to complete the activation process and needs to be replaced. Please visit your nearest apple store or authorized service center.

I feel like I am just going around these two different "money hogger" companies which set certain rules and regulations to screw a regular phone buyer. I purchased this iphone in USA and trying to unlock in India, is it really this hard to simply unlock a device.
For now I am going to try to call a apple office in india (apprently we don't have very many out here) and see if they can help me. But any other assistance regarding unlocking an iphone 4s would be helpful. I have however, tried checking IMEI.info, called up apple, talked to at&t (which always say go talk to apple) I do have a case number from apple as well in case an apple executive reads this discussion forum (case number: 566383594)

Thanks