Hyderabad, October 30: This device looks exactly like a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. But instead of cigarettes, it contains integrated circuits and components that can be a cause of concern to corrupt ‘babus’.
Next time an ACB team walks into the house of a corrupt government official, one of the sleuths is going to carry the `pack’ which will block the signals of the official’s mobile phone cutting off his vital communication channel.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau is acquiring the mobile phone jammers, called ‘cigarette cellphone jammers’, in addition to the state-of-the-art spying gadgets, to ensure that the accused officers are not able to make last-minute calls, either to his relatives or auditors, to destroy various documents pertaining to the properties they had purchased with ill-gotten money.
According to sources, during raids officials always face this problem of preventing the officer or his aides from making calls to their associates.
Often either the official or any of his family members, on some pretext or the other, make calls from their mobiles and attempt to destroy documentary evidence of their misdeeds.
Sometimes they make calls clandestinely from other rooms in the house.
“They call up their relatives, friends or auditors with whom they keep their property documents and ask them to destroy them immediately.
Due to this, we were unable to lay our hands on vital evidence in many cases,” the sources said.
Now, the jammers have turned out to be the right solution to the problem.
Explaining the features of the wireless cigarette cellphone jammer, sources said it blocks signals from mobile phones but does not interfere with the normal operation of other electronic devices.
“It can effectively shield signals from CDMA, GSM, DCS, PHS and 3G phones and covers an area of over 20 metres (approximately 60 feet from all sides),” the sources said.
A Chinese firm, Eastlonge Electronics, is the manufacturer of the ‘mini’ jammer. “We will be acquiring 20 jammers shortly,” they said. Each jammer, costing around Rs 10,000, works for three hours continuously after which it needs to be charged.
–Agencies