Injustice at the hands of PTA/FIA - Part 1

The following was received recently by Wheels of Justice. We are publishing it verbatim.
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I wanted to share a recent harrowing experience that my company is going through in Pakistan. First a bit of a background.

I Co-founded an internet Startup company, in Islamabad, Pakistan, which runs a very successful job portal in the country. Among our innovations, we were one of the first companies in the world to launch an integrated Voice Resume system based on VoIP technologies. And our solution is being used by companies like TRG and others to hire quality talent for their call centers in Pakistan.

On Tuesday Dec 4, around noon, Pakistan Time, FIA (Federal Investigation Authority) and PTA (Pak Telecom Authority.. http://www.pta.gov.pk) walked into our offices in the software technology park and seized all our servers, mobiles and everything on the pretext that we are using it for illegal VoIP termination. They also locked up our current CEO, behind bars. Even when we explained to them that we are not doing call terminations, and only develop creative solutions for call centers to use, they would not listen.

Now, we are a small internet startup company based out of Islamabad. Nor do we have any connections with any major government or military establishments. We have no interest in call termination or anything of that sort. We are focused on BrightSpyre and bringing software revenue into the country through US based projects. Taking away all our servers and routers means, we cannot deliver on those projects and locking up our CEO without any notices, warnings is also not legally a good step.

So far, we have called up PASHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association), PSEB (Pakistan Software Export Board), ISPAK (Internet Service Providers Assocation of Pakistan) to assist and help us in this regard. But PTA/FIA have not budged from their unlawful acts....

On one side, the government is promising so many incentives to help the nascent software Industry in the country. On the other, it is using these horrendous acts of saboteur that it makes it impossible for us to work efficiently.

If there is an issue then they should send us a notice or talk to us first and discuss the matter. To barge into our offices, locking up our staff and siezing our hardware/software will not help in any way get them more investment in the country. The most ironic part of the incident was that our office is located in the Software technolgy park, less than 100 feet from Pakistan Software Export Board and two floors below Ministry of IT and Telecom. What a stupid thing for PTA/FIA to do.