Bugging device comes to track crime suspects

Politicians’ phones are also not free from intelligence network
The government is going to set up modern bugging devices to stop telephonic and cyber crimes as part of strengthening the activities of the intelligence and the law enforcement agencies.
An intelligence agency of police has initiated import of a mobile tracking machine named ‘mobile tracker active’ to track mobile and landphone calls for identifying and locating criminals and members of militant organisations, sources said yesterday.
Already a watchdog agency styled the National Monitoring Centre (NMC) has been set up comprising different intelligence agencies, such as Directorate General of the Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Special Security Force (SSF), National Security Intelligence (NSI), Special Branch (SB) of police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). Members of NMC are tracking phone calls of criminals, militants, political leaders and other users to remain informed about their activities across the country, sources added.
But the blanket coverage of intelligence network has also given rise to allegations of infringement on individual rights.
“This curtails individual freedoms”, said a senior journalist working with print media.
Meanwhile, a total of 847 mobile SIM cards were seized by the NMC over the last three months and the concerned SIM users were arrested, a high official of the Home Ministry disclosed at a recent meeting of the ministry, sources said.
Not only the NMC, but also all the intelligence units of law enforcement agencies like RAB, criminal investigation department (CID) and the SB are tracking phone calls independently, according to the sources.
A high official of CID on condition of anonymity yesterday told The Independent that they had taken a move to analyse the data of the passengers, who will enter and exit the country by using a software named ‘i-2 analyst notebook’, to curb terrorism and militancy.
“Some officers of intelligence agencies have been trained abroad for utilising the software to analyse the link of the criminals,” he said.
“A number of terrorists and members of different militant agencies were arrested by tracking phones and analysing the call data record (CDR) over a couple of years,” he added.
The NMC is tracking 100-phone call everyday from the switchboard of different phone operators and the chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is monitoring the NMC’s activities, sources in the home Ministry said.
The members of different terrorists and militant groups have been using SIM cards of various mobile operators to instruct their cadres to carry out various subversive operations across the country, government sources said.

Courtesy of The Independent