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The Union Home Ministry has asked telecom operators in the Kashmir valley to ensure that all communications on the Internet and social networking sites are monitored on real-time basis.
Ministry sources have said that all the service operators in the valley have been asked to ensure that communications taking place over their networks either through Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or on social networking sites should be available for monitoring by the security agencies.
Recently, a meeting of top executives of the telecom firms was called by the Home Ministry where instructions to this effect were conveyed to them, they said.
The meeting where top intelligence and security agency officials were also present was chaired by the Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram. He was briefed about security concerns resulting from unmonitored communications taking place over VoIP and through social networking sites, sources said.
Intelligence officials have expressed concern over the lack of real-time monitoring of communication exchanges taking place over the Internet and that telecom operators were not providing them the real-time data of these conversations which is a security risk, they said.
The Home Minister is understood to have agreed with the concerns of the security agencies and asked the telecom operators to ensure that requirements of the intelligence agencies should be met, they said. There are seven telecom players, including BSNL, Bharti airtel, Aircel, Idea, Reliance Communications, Tata Indicom and Vodafone operating in Jammu and Kashmir. These telecom companies provide post-paid, as well as pre-paid mobile services in the State.
The meeting was attended by the Union Home Secretary, Mr R K Singh, the Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Mr Kuldeep Khoda, senior ministry officials and senior executives from various operators, including the Bharti airtel CEO, Mr Sanjay Kapoor; the Vodafone Essar Cellular managing director, Mr Sunil Sood; and the Reliance Communications CEO, Mr C.S. Rao.
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