Pak-origin call to NSG officer: Security agencies push for blocking VoIP

New Delhi: A telephone call originating from Pakistan to an officer of the elite National Security Guards (NSG) seeking information about Hyderabad blasts has led security agencies to make a fresh push for blocking of Internet telephony. The call to the Major-rank NSG officer, who is on deputation from Army, was termed as “not alarming” but the incident has raised questions about adherence of ‘Do’s and Dont’s’ being issued from time to time by central security agencies.  The NSG has instituted an inquiry to ascertain the cause of lapse in the incident wherein a suspected ISI agent called the EPBX of the NSG office here and asked for the Major, who reportedly talked about the movement of the ‘Black Cats’ to the site of the twin blasts thinking it was a senior officer at the other end as conveyed to him. However, the officer did not share any important evidence about the trigger mechanism of the explosives that was used in the blasts in Hyderabad’s Dilsukhnagar area last month that had left 16 people dead. NSG chief Arvind Ranjan has “ordered an inquiry” but said there was nothing alarming in the conversation as no vital information had been leaked to the unidentified caller from Pakistan. According to sources today, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call is becoming handy for ISI agents and terrorists operating from Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir(PoK). The mushrooming of unregistered VoIP or Internet telephony is becoming a security problem as the origin of caller and time of call cannot be ascertained immediately. Central security agencies have been pressing Department of Telecom to ask service providers to come up with a solution for which several rounds of meetings have taken place between DoT, National Technical Research Organisation(NTRO) and service providers. However, no solution has been found to block unregistered VoIP operating from outside the the country’s borders. PTI