KARACHI: The Sindh police have decided to recruit IT experts to set up their own “cell” to keep an eye on the cyber world as technology has become the key medium for almost all illegal activities, spreading hatred and source of communication for banned outfits and criminal gangs, it emerged on Sunday.

An official said that the plan to recruit IT professionals was being finalised after it was principally decided upon by the authorities. The hiring of such experts, he said, would be a part of the Sindh police recruitment plan for the year 2017-18 — for which it had decided to recruit total 10,000 more policemen to “improve police-to-citizens ratio, especially in Karachi”.

“The main objective of the cell is to keep eye on the cyber world and all its mediums,” he said.

He explained that currently the police had to rely on different sources for such expertise and ask other agencies to help in such cases. “Once the Sindh police have a cyber cell, it will be self-reliant and be able to identify those areas where focused intelligence operations are needed for effective results.”

He explained that a handsome part of the police budget would be set aside for the new project, which would be the first such initiative in the history of Sindh police.

The move to set up an IT cell this financial year, said the official, would be in addition to other plans devised for 2017-18 that included establishment of an intelligence school and data centre for the Sindh police at a cost of Rs280 million.

Earlier this month, the Sindh government announced a 10 per cent increase in the budget for security with a plan to recruit 10,000 more policemen in the next financial year.

Responding to a question about IT cells in other provinces, the official said that the law enforcement agencies in Punjab had made good progress to strengthen their IT section but the one in Sindh would be different in terms of its mandate and areas of operation.

“The proposed IT cell will be a part of active policing and intelligence — not just for in-house IT-related requirements of the institution,” he said. “It will be a kind of cell working with the Federal Investigation Agency and other intelligence agencies. The IT experts recruited by the Sindh police will also train policemen at specialised units of the provincial law enforcement agency for using technology in regular policing.”

“For instance, the Counter-Terrorism Department of the Sindh police have recently prepared a consolidated list of websites, web pages and social media accounts spreading extremism and terrorism; and have asked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the FIA and other authorities to ban them,” he said.

“Once the cell is there, it will assist different units of the police about the existence of such activities in the cyber world and propose measures to counter them or help tracking them down and identify people behind them,” he added.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2017