I read this message today via Ponder Alliance, a group of serious Pakistanis who are willing to promote I.T in Pakistan. At one side PSEB claims that IT industry is booming and government is serious about it but on the other hand, we have to hear such things as well.

I am not sure how true it is but let me tell you that I personally is a member of BrightSpyre and this is really a great platform to know different credible job openings in Pakistan. If such thing really has happened with these guys then I must say that it’s not sending some positive message to foreign investors as well as sincere Pakistanis who are in field of IT working in US or UK but willing to do something for their motherland. The link I mentioned above doesn’t have attachment therefore I am re-producing the message of Mr.Amir Mumtaz below:

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Injustice at the hands of PTA/FIA in Pakistan

I wanted to share a recent harrowing experience that my company is going through in Pakistan. First a bit of a background.
Background:I Co-founded an internet Startup company, called Cogilent Solutions (www.cogilent.com), in Islamabad, which runs a very successful job portal in the country called BrightSpyre ( www.BrightSpyre.com). Among our innovations, we are the largest web based portal with over 300,000 users in Pakistan and customers like United Nations, Pakistan Software Export Board among our growing list of over 200 national and multinational companies. We are also 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, CresTel and others to hire quality talent for their call centers in Pakistan.
The Injustice:
On Tuesday Dec 4, around noon, Pakistan Time, FIA (Federal Investigation Authority) and PTA (Pak Telecom Authority) walked into our offices in the software technology park 2 in Islamabad, and seized all our servers, mobiles and everything on the pretext that we are using our office premises to make illegal VoIP termination. They also locked up our current CEO, Mr. Faisal Chohan behind bars and also put out the arrest warrants for Ahmad Jawad and Director Networking. 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.

The accusation that we have been informed through Managing Director Pakistan Software Export Board is that there are over 29,000 call records that are terminated internationally through our server.

Here is our sincere response. In our office, at Islamabad, we manage a telephone exchange that is based on our product IRIS and popular software called Asterisk. This exchange was brought live a few months ago to not only enhance the functionality of our IRIS product but also to act as our inter-office exchange. It is completely VoIP as almost all inter-office exchanges are. It is primarily used to call within the office for communications and to our clients, our homes and friends through our PSTN gateway. This fact can easily be verified by comparing with PTCL Call Records with call logs on the server. Therefore, the calls that were made from our exchange can also be easily traced and tracked and will prove without doubt that we were not terminating the services anywhere. These calls will end up either at our clients offices locally or homes of our employees in Islamabad. That means, all the calls were made locally for local contact with no international contact….or termination… Furthermore, in order for this machine to act as an international gateway, it needs to be connected with another box somewhere. Since they have the machine in their control, they can easily verify that the machine is not connected with any server anywhere and is actually a standalone box. And lastly but not the least, the hardware configuration of the box is a Pentium 2 machine dating back to 1998/99. It only has all our office PTCL numbers terminated which are just three phone lines. How can we make 29,000 calls with such a configuration. A load test on the server box by anyone can prove without doubt that this machine is unable to handle the load.

Therefore, in conclusion, the purpose of this machine was to act as an inter-office exchange and to further the development of our IRIS services. For that we have been testing various new technologies on it and implementing various tests. Without testing our services, we cannot sell this hardware box to any of our customers. Hence, everything inside it is designed for that purpose.

A close look at our financials will also prove that we have nothing to hide. All are money is legitimate and can easily be traced back to our customers. And majority of our financials come from BrightSpyre and software services.

Cogilent and BrightSpyre
Since 2002, we have focused our business around BrightSpyre and its related services. We occasionally also secure software projects from abroad for work within Pakistan. Taking away all our servers and routers means, we cannot deliver on those projects.

Furthermore, we had never received any notice from PTA or FIA that we were doing anything illegal. Nor are they willing to listen to anything that we say, and are accusing us and threatening us.

It also does not bode well that they have locked up our CEO and have also taken a remand off him for 3 days (till Saturday). What can he tell them that we have not repeated a million times? There is nothing to find and nothing to hide.

We would like to cooperate and find out what is the issue, but we are not being informed of anything and are totally lost.

Mr. Yousuf Hussain, Managing Director, PSEB, Mr. Wahaj us Siraj (Micronet) and Dr. Aamir Matin (Cisco) have been assisting us in this matter as they have not only used our services but know Cogilent for many years. We would like an amicable end to this debacle and cooperate but we are only getting threats.

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

Conclusion: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 seizing 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 technology park, less than 100 feet from Pakistan Software Export Board and two floors below Ministry of IT and Telecom.

In today’s day and age, we need to understand that we are not all guilty until proven innocent. Sometimes, just talking to us and working together will help. We will not only cooperate but will also be able to share new developments in the industry.

Cogilent Solutions has always prided ourselves for being self made. We started with nothing in our pockets in 2002 and worked hard to generate all the revenue. We now employ 20 employees and pay our taxes on a regular basis. We have never taken any bribe or given to any company for doing any project. We have also shied away from any shady business and have only accepted legitimate projects.

We were also one of the first companies to successfully launch a web based business in Pakistan, called BrightSpyre (www.BrightSpyre.com) which today has almost 300,000 users. That is the largest online community of professionals in the country and Cogilent is proud to attract such a huge talent to its fold. We were awarded, “Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2004” award by Shell Corporation for successful innovation and creativity in hiring solutions in the country. We are also one of the only 100 software houses in the country that is ISO-9000 certified.

We now request your support and cooperation in amicably resolving this crisis that has plagued us this week. We are losing money daily and are also suffering. Your help in this regards will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and regards,

Atif Mumtaz

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Update: Mr Atif Mumtaz contacted me via email and informed me a website for this particular issue. Please visit http://wheelofjustice.blogspot.com

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