NEW DELHI: Pakistan‘s Interior Ministry has formed a committee to prepare the draft bill to end the misuse of email, MMS and SMS services in anti-state activities.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik gave orders for establishing the committee during a meeting with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Chairman Mohammed Yaseen along with the Secretaries of Interior and Information Technology departments, besides the Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary Law were also present.

This committee will work under the chairmanship of Interior Secretary and it will keep monitoring the misuse of electronic facilities in all anti-state activities, according to apnatime.com.

Recently, several journalists, families and businessmen had received threatening messages through Email, SMS and MMS services. The Interior Minister held a meeting to deal with the problem. During meeting it was noted that several unauthorized SIMs were still being used in crimes like bank robberies, target killings and kidnappings for ransom.

Malik had ordered Yaseen to hold a meeting with all telecom operators to convey the concerns of government regarding the misuse of telecommunication services in anti-state and anti-social activities.

Earlier in September, Malik had referred to the issue of cyber crimes in Pakistan and he said government agencies had learnt that social networking sites like Facebook are being used for threatening and harassment purposes. The web sites with free SMS services are also being used with similar intentions. The government decided to contact Interpol so that the people behind the misuse of social networks could be tracked down and apprehended.

Additionally, the owners of web sites with free SMS services have been asked to stop their web sites and such services. He had said that the number of unregistered blocked mobile phone SIMs has reached 20.1 million.