KARACHI, Oct 21: At least three intelligence agencies resort to wire-tapping in the country in their bid to procure information, Dawn learnt here on Thursday.

The Inter-Services Intelligence, the Intelligence Bureau and the Military Intelligence are the three organizations that tap people’s phones invoking article 54 of the Pakistan Telecommunications (Reorganization) Act 1996.

The article, which is titled “national security”, says: “Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force, in the interest of national security or in the apprehension of any offence, the federal government may authorize any person or persons to intercept calls and messages or to trace calls through any telecommunication system.”

Well-placed sources said that originally the Intelligence Bureau had been mandated to indulge in what in technical parlance is referred to as ‘electronic eavesdropping’. Its safe house in Clifton — called the Bhopal House — had been equipped with gadgetry required to eavesdrop on phone calls made by shady characters suspected of taking part in anti-state activities or espionage.

An official of the Inter-Services Intelligence, who requested not to be named, said that his intelligence outfit had procured extremely sophisticated monitoring devices in 1996 when Naseerullah Babar had been the interior minister. “The intelligence agencies laid their hands on electronic eavesdropping devices. The successful manner in which the police and other law-enforcement agencies subsequently tracked down criminals and terrorists has few parallells in police history,” he said.

Explaining how modern monitoring devices were different from the old ones, he said modern wire-tapping devices were programmed for a set of certain words, such as India, president and the governor house. The moment a subject — a euphemism for the person under observation — uttered one of these words, the device was activated and recorded snatches of conversation. The choice of words naturally varied from subject to subject.

He, however, admitted that these hi-fi monitoring devices were used for purposes other than those which were permissible under the Constitution. “For instance, the intelligence agencies eavesdrop on phone calls made by political activists, consulate officials, journalists, senior police officials, judges, corps commanders, etc,” he said.

Insiders told Dawn that occasionally the intelligence agencies employed wire-tapping devices to spy on one another as well. The abuse of these devices had become so rampant that the president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, had to recently order the national intelligence agencies to concentrate on terrorism and sectarianism-related activities instead of gathering “political intelligence”.

According to news reports, the president directed the intelligence agencies to reorientate their focus towards criminal activities, sectarian violence and terrorism instead of pursuing other activities like political intelligence gathering.

In February a former deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau, Abdur Rahman, admitted to having tape-recorded telephone conversations between Justice Malick Qayyum of the Lahore High Court, the LHC chief justice, Justice Rashid Aziz, the former law minister, Khalid Anwer, and former NAB chief Saifur Rehman. The transcript of the conversations — parts of which were at first published by The Sunday Times — called into question the verdict announced by Justice Qayyum in the SGS/Cotecna case against the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari.