CTD to upgrade for more efficient fight against terrorism

Sindh’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) is focusing on making developments as regards cyber security and maintaining a proper database to enable effective comparison, analysis and prediction of trends and patterns of criminal activities.

The department’s chief, Addl IGP Sanaullah Abbasi, told The News on Sunday that the hallmark of the CTD’s performance was reliance on forensic evidence in accordance with the law, adding that they were trying to equip themselves with the most modern skills and technologies to fight terrorism in a more efficient manner.

Abbasi said the CTD would create and maintain a proper database to help them draw comparisons between all the crimes on record, set up an analysis wing, conduct fortnightly and monthly reviews, and try to identify trends and patterns of criminal activities to make better predictions for dealing with future challenges.

He said a thousand police constables were recently recruited through the National Testing Service, which assessed their emotional quotient, extremist quotient, etc, and they were trained by the army.

Talking about more initiatives, he said they would send high-profile terrorism cases to the military courts, place new activists on the Anti-Terrorism Act’s Fourth Schedule, ban jihadi websites, and arrest proclaimed offenders and absconders. “We are also working on cyber security, setting up a crime unit and choking terror financing.”

Abbasi said the department’s future projects included setting up their headquarters in Qayyumabad, renovation and rehabilitation of the CTD’s intelligence school at the Saeedabad police training centre and drawing up security plans for the agency’s buildings in different parts of the Karachi.

Other schemes include setting up new CTD police stations and SSP offices in Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Larkana, and establishing a new CTD unit in Shaheed Benazirabad, he added.

He said they had requested the Sindh government to allocate funds for purchasing operational gadgets and equipment, which included the National Radio Telecommunication Corporation’s (NRTC) covert surveillance solution (without vehicle) and their personal role radios.

The other gadgets include VoIP application server, security authentication server, VPN server, Android-based smartphones with security applications and the NRTC’s secure VoIP communication system for safe communication, he added.

He said his department had also requested for digital forensic tools and equipment, which included the EnCase Forensic software, Internet Evidence Finder to find and analyse internet history and cloud storage, software for efficient and secure imaging of hard disk drives, and X1 Social Discovery for collecting data from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and web pages, etc. To analyse Apple iOS, the CTD has requested purchasing the Mobilyze software, he added.

The CTD Sindh chief said the department’s request had been forwarded to the Sindh government with the amount it would cost for purchasing all the required software and equipment.