ISLAMABAD, Aug 3: The government has decided to establish a cyber crime wing in the Federal Investigation Agency, sources in the interior ministry told Dawn.

According to these sources, the interior ministry has proposed the establishment of the wing to investigate cases relating to hacking, sending obnoxious e-mails, gaining illegal access to electronic documents, etc.

Earlier, the ministry of science and technology had proposed that the power to initiate prosecution in cases related to cyber crime be vested in it.

As the matter is related to law and order, the interior ministry sources said, the law enforcement agencies would be entrusted the task of initiating prosecution of cyber crime cases.

An important task of the wing would be to tackle cases related to e-commerce.

Moreover, the sources said, the cyber crime wing would track down and investigate cases whereby any person gains or attempts to gain access to any information system with the intent to acquire the information contained in it. The wing would also hunt hackers who are not authorized to gain access to electronic information.

The cyber crime wing, the sources said, would be equipped to trace out hackers who damage an information system, alter, modify, delete, remove, generate, transmit or store any information they are not authorized to do.