EDITORIAL: For a government targeting USD 10 billion in IT exports by FY29, the prospects of cybercrime investigators walking into functioning software houses and carrying away the equipment used to serve foreign clients are a peculiar advertisement for Pakistan’s investment climate.
Yet that is the disruption described by the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), which alleges that National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) teams have entered registered firms without showing warrants, questioned employees for hours and seized laptops and servers even where no unlawful activity was found. If substantiated, these complaints suggest that the state is undermining an industry it repeatedly promises to promote.
The allegations demand more than another round of official reassurances. Fighting online fraud and dismantling scam centres is essential; such operations protect victims and Pakistan’s reputation. Fraudsters can register businesses as IT companies, making careful investigation necessary. But an agency entrusted with enforcing the law must be particularly scrupulous about observing it. Searches must have proper legal authority, staff must be treated with dignity, and evidence must be handled through transparent, documented procedures. Harassment and indiscriminate confiscation cannot become substitutes for investigative competence.
The commercial consequences are immediate. A seized server can interrupt services to clients thousands of miles away; a confiscated laptop may contain confidential information that a Pakistani vendor is contractually obliged to protect. Foreign customers make decisions long before a disputed raid is investigated or an official explanation arrives. They have alternatives in India, the Philippines, and Eastern Europe, and an industry dependent on repeat business and credibility cannot afford to give them reasons to leave.
That makes the government’s familiar habit of acting first and consulting later especially damaging. Pakistan’s authorities repeatedly announce consequential interventions, discover their practical costs after stakeholders protest; then begin discussing the safeguards that should have been designed beforehand. P@SHA is now asking for a joint coordination and grievance committee involving the NCCIA, the Ministry of IT and Telecom and the Pakistan Software Export Board. Why was a working arrangement with the sector not established before enforcement started disrupting registered firms? Consultation is hardly an exotic administrative innovation.
The numbers expose the scale of the gamble. According to P@SHA, IT exports reached USD 4.6 billion in FY26, with the industry growing at around 20 percent. The export ambition forms part of the government’s Uraan Pakistan programme. Whatever one thinks of that target’s realism, it cannot be approached by making overseas customers wonder whether the servers carrying their work will still be available tomorrow. Investment decisions turn on predictable rules, operational continuity, and confidence that disputes will be resolved fairly.
There are practical answers. Investigators should verify registrations without treating registration as immunity from scrutiny; conduct searches under the appropriate judicial authority; preserve digital evidence through properly recorded forensic imaging wherever feasible; and limit the removal of equipment to what an investigation actually requires. P@SHA’s proposal to return unrelated devices within seven days deserves serious consideration. Complaints of mistreatment, interference with CCTV systems or improper seizures should be independently examined, with accountability where misconduct is established. Clear standard operating procedures, developed with industry representatives, would strengthen enforcement rather than obstruct it.
Above all, the NCCIA and the government must recognise the difference between pursuing criminals and unsettling an entire export sector. Pakistan has spent years urging international businesses to trust its digital capabilities. That trust can evaporate with one disrupted contract, while rebuilding it takes considerably longer than drafting another committee notification. A country that wants to export software should perhaps begin by ensuring that its software houses are allowed to work.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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