With Advent of modern technology, the face of traditional crime has drastically changed. Now criminals adopt digital means to commit different crimes. This has ushered into an era of Cyber crimes in the society. Now law enforcement agencies are facing culprits who use Cyber space to successfully commit an offense. In Pakistan the Federal Investigation Agency has been assigned the task of countering Cyber crimes. it has created a special wing called CCW (Cyber crime wing) to deal with such offenses. Initially the CCW did play a very positive role in nabbing such culprits but with the passage of time the typical police culture peeped into its ranks. The officers and officials posted in CCW start turning into a mafia of their own kind. They started becoming inefficient. The lust for power and misuse of authority has become the hallmark of this wing. They become so obsessed with their self-projection that many of them use social media to show-off their tiny selves. Having no regard for government rules and regulations, they openly use their official position over social media for their personal gains. Many of them have even opened YouTube channels, and accounts over Facebook, Instagram and twitter by showing their official positions.one glaring example is that of an Assistant Director namely Asif Iqbal Choudhry. The social media is filled with the personal stuff of this officer, which is meant for his self- projection. AD, Asif Iqbal, has established a YouTube channel with the title ” Muhammad Asif Iqbal Cyber Crime wing FIA”. Similarly he is using to the name of FIA in all his other social media platforms and videos. Without any legal permission this FIA officer is openly using his Official position for his personal gains. When Additional Director General FIA Ihsan Sadiq took notice of his illegal activities and placed him under suspension then this Assistant Director resorted to cheap tactics. He labeled his routine suspension as something to do with the tweet of Iman mazari who is the daughter of Federal Minister for human Rights Dr sherin Mazari. Through his cronies he started hashtag “Justice for Asif Iqbal” and Reinstate Asif Iqbal”. But in order to pressurize DG FIA wajid Zia and ADG Ihsan Sadiq his cronies started hashtag” Sack sherin mazari”. He started giving impression as if he was the only honest officer of FIA who has been sacked for taking a feud with the daughter of a minister. This shows how the Cyber crime wing officers have turned themselves into Cyber bullies for their personal gains. In recent past when an honest FIA officer Sajjad Mustafa Bajwa while posted in Cyber crime circle Lahore countered the illegal actions of such black sheep then they all made an alliance against him. When he wrote to high ups regarding the wrongdoings of such personnel then instead of taking any disciplinary action, the FIA Headquarters transferred Mr Bajwa. This was a turning point as this mafia became so powerful that no officer could dare to question their illegal activities. From the very beginning the Cyber Crime wing has turned into a liability for FIA. Most of the recruitment was done from those already working in the PISCES project of FIA. The rest were “sifarishees” of big guns. The people with dubious qualifications were inducted without observing the rules. From the very beginning those with better skills were either expelled or forced to leave. But those with dubious qualifications were extended important portfolios. One Forensic Expert (Now renamed as DD forensic) presented his degree from such a campus of a university which was declared illegal by Higher Education Commission. The first batch of CCW was regularized by the famous Khursheed Shah Committee which has mandate of only considering those cases below BPS-17. But interestingly, this Committee illegally regularized the services of CCW officers in BPS 17 and 18. Till date no legal explanation has been extended to elaborate this anomaly. The second batch was recruited in 2013. But on Deputy Director Forensic hailing from Mardan was illegally regularized with the first batch of CCW. Funny thing is that all the batchmates if this Deputy Director are still striving for regularization of their service. One Deputy Director hailing from Lahore was caught red handed while changing the cell phone confiscated as case property. Despite such criminal act the gentleman is still enjoying his service. The most strange case is that of an officer who was recruited as Principal Investigator, a post meant for technical investigation. This officer was so crafty that he first changed the nomenclature of his post to Assistant Director. Then he put his career on a fast track and within no time he grabbed the post of Additional Director in BPS 19. He was eyeing over the post of Director in BPS 20 but thanks to the leg pulling culture of FIA, his matter was reported to high ups. Till date no legal action has been taken against him. This author has evidence that the officers of CCW are involved in illegally providing the logs of different Facebook accounts of females, call data record and NADRA record of different people in lieu of huge find of money. It is pertinent to mention that social media platforms and other famous websites provide information only if request is made through an official email account. The irony is that all the regular, adhoc and contract employees of CCW have been granted official email address with no counter check upon the users. There is no centralized monitoring system to check whether the data is being requested for official or personal purposes. The incumbent DG FIA wajid Zia is a very upright and honest person. Similarly the Additional DG CCW Mr Ihsan Sadiq is known for his honesty and professionalism. Recently the induction of Mr Jaffer Khan as Director Cyber Crime Islamabad is really a wise decision. But unless and until there is a strong accountability and checks & balance system within the ranks of Cyber crime wing, there is little hope of any improvement. It is essential to discourage the trends of self-projection and personal aggrandizement amongst the officers and officials of Cyber Crime wing. There should be zero tolerance for using the name and resources of CCW for personal gains. Most importantly the professional and we’ll experienced officers of other wings of FIA should be posted in CCW to improve it’s performance. If timely steps are not taken then the future seems bleaker for CCW.
The writer is a senior Journalist He can be reached at pmpk55@hotmail.com Mobile No, +60109301521