KATHMANDU, July 23: Nepal's only intelligence agency, the National Investigation Department (NID) has started phone tapping amid concerns that the activities of foreigners were on the rise in Nepal.
According to officials at NID, the machines at the NID have already been activated. “At present, foreign security personnel have been coming and increasing their meetings with Nepal's political parties and security agencies. This necessitated activating the phone tapping,” he said on condition of anonymity.
The official also informed Republica that the machines have been active for the past two months. According to sources, phone tapping has started targeting meetings and conversations with potential people as the officials of India and China are secretly coming to Nepal.
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However, due to the absence of a law on phone tapping, the NID has not been able to formally use it. Sources claimed that this machine is being used only sometimes. "It is the responsibility of the NID to go after suspicious people, do espionage and collect information and submit it to the state, which should be in the national interest," said the official.
The NID has demanded that the government enact laws on such matters and allow phone tapping as there is no counter-terrorism cell in Nepal.
In addition to Indian security officers, Chinese, American, British and Pakistani security personnel are living as companions in Nepal. Sources claim that the phone tapping machine was activated especially after the Indian security officer came to Nepal under various pretexts and started increasing contacts with the Nepali security personnel and politicians.
The NID had brought a phone tapping machine in December 2020 from Israel at the cost of over Rs 300 million. The machine was purchased after the Special Services Bill was registered in the National Assembly to enable the NID to tap phones of citizens.
CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli was the Prime Minister when the phone tapping machine was brought. The government has not informed the public about the purchase of the equipment. The same machine is now being used by the current government. Apart from the NID, the Ministry of Home Affairs also occasionally conducts informal phone tapping and extracting call details.
Sources claim that tapping is also necessary because the NID can record the details, signals or information related to the telecommunications of any suspicious individual and organizations through computers, telephones, mobile phones, and internet. However, such details are recorded for certain purposes and since it should be used only for that purpose, some former officials of the NID argue that it should not be done without making proper law.
“A bill regarding this was introduced in the National Assembly earlier. But the Bill has not taken legal form yet. It would have been better to run the machine costing millions of rupees instead of just placing it at the NID. But the law has not been formulated yet," said the former officer.
