Pakistan's software industry body has warned that a cybercrime crackdown meant for scam call centres is sweeping up legitimate technology companies, and it is asking the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency to change how it carries out raids.

In a statement on Monday, 9 November 2026, the Pakistan Software Houses Association, known as P@SHA, said the agency's campaign against fraud operations had also hit registered software and IT services firms. The association says it supports lawful action against scam centres, which defraud people in Pakistan and abroad and damage the country's name. Its complaint is about the method.

Raids without warrants, servers seized

Member companies have told the association that agency teams entered offices without showing a warrant, held and questioned staff for hours, and took laptops, servers and phones into custody, in some cases at offices where investigators found nothing unlawful.

P@SHA stressed that it regards call centres as legitimate businesses and does not class scam operations as call centres at all. It urged the agency to draw a clear line between real IT firms and fraud operations before taking action.

The association has asked the agency to verify a company's status with the Pakistan Software Export Board and with P@SHA through a designated focal person before any raid. It also wants searches carried out under court warrants and agreed procedures, with data copied on site instead of hardware being removed, and unrelated devices returned within seven days.

Exports at stake

The stakes, the association argues, are export earnings. Pakistan's IT exports reached a record 4.6 billion dollars in the last fiscal year, up from 3.8 billion dollars the year before, and the government has set a target of 10 billion dollars by fiscal year 2029.

P@SHA chairman Dr Shoab Ahmed Khan put it bluntly: "Every single dollar is earned on trust. A foreign client who hears that his vendor's office was raided and its servers taken away does not wait for the forensic report."

The association has asked for an urgent joint meeting with the Minister for IT and Telecom, the Interior Ministry and the NCCIA Director General, and said it will share specific cases reported by member companies. It has also proposed a joint grievance committee bringing together the agency, the association, the IT ministry and the export board.

The crackdown behind the complaint

The crackdown itself is large. In late October, the agency arrested 89 suspects in a nationwide sweep of illegal call centres, and last week its raid on a Karachi call centre picked up 273 people, among them minors, in what investigators described as an international fraud network using spoofed calls to steal card data.

P@SHA noted that the agency itself has said some fraud operators register as IT firms, which is exactly why it wants verification before force. The agency had not responded to the association's statement when the first reports were published on Monday and Tuesday.

The dispute now turns on process: the industry body wants the crackdown to continue, but with warrants, agreed procedures and a check on a firm's registration before officers walk through the door.