PESHAWAR, Feb 17: Unauthorized sale of satellite mobile phone connections in the local market has not only caused revenue loss to the government, but also creating problems for law-enforcement agencies to check misuse of the facility by the anti-social elements.

Four shops at the Awami Market in Karkhano Bazaar - known for stocking smuggled goods - are selling illegal satellite telephone connections at cheap rates.

Since Dec 2001, when the only licence holder of a Dubai-based satellite mobile company launched its operation in Pakistan, the illegal sale of its connections started at the local market, adjacent to the tribal region of Khyber Agency.

According to the rules, the company demands national identity card and valid passport from the buyer along with two references of Pakistani nationals for the purpose not to sale the sensitive communication facility to anti-state elements.

Unauthorized dealers from Pakistan and Afghanistan purchase handsets and scratch cards from Dubai, where there was no upper limit on the purchase of satellite connections. Contrary to that, in Pakistan one person could not have more than three satellite connections.

Due to illegal sale of satellite telephone, the government was losing millions of rupees in taxes.

"The illegal sale of satellite telephone connections in the country has facilitated Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters to communicate their plans in Pakistan and Afghanistan without any hardship," sources in the law-enforcement agencies said.

They said that the satellite telephone was a main tool of terrorists which they use from their hideouts in the remote mountainous regions in Federally Administrated Tribal Areas in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan.

In almost all the raids conducted by the law enforcement and covert agencies to net the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters either in the settled area or tribal regions, they seized satellite telephone sets and laptop computers from their possessions, which proved the misuse of the sensitive communication facility by the anti-states elements, the sources added.

Last month, they said, personnel of a law enforcement agency at Quetta airport seized handsets and scratch cards worth more then Rs 6.4 million and arrested a Pakistani and an Afghani on charges of smuggling them from Dubai.

The dealer of a company had informed the PTA and asked it to take action against the illegal sale of the satellite phones in Peshawar and Quetta, an official of the company said. But so far no action had been taken by the government authorities, he added.

A senior official in FIA, however, said that it was impossible for the agency to take direct action against the illegal sellers because that could create law and order situation. "But we have asked the provincial government for the help of police and soon will stop the illegal sale," he claimed.