Jamshedpur, May 6: The government has decided to do away with wireless sets of the police department.

The sets of the East Singhbhum district police would be replaced with high-frequency ones.

State police authorities said the decision was taken because rebels of the outlawed People’s War have been intercepting messages of security agencies during anti-insurgency operations.

According to deputy inspector-general of police (Kolhan range) Ram Chandra Ram, the existing wireless sets are so poor that messages can be easily intercepted by means of FM band transistors.

Ram said this was the reason beacause of which “police have abandoned the use of wireless in many of the extremism-ravaged areas in the state and prefer carrying out operations by sending messengers to destinations instead of using wireless sets”.

“Police authorities have taken a decision to dump existing wireless sets of the East Singhbhum police after a request made by superintendent Arun Oraon. Since the wireless set do not aid discreet operation in any way, the replacement of the communication gadget has been decided upon,” Ram said.

Oraon said he had requested for the replacement of the wireless sets in the district as there were intelligence reports of message interception by the extremists in the Ghurabandha-Dumaria area of the Ghatshila sub-division.

“They use FM band transitors to intercept messages communicated through police wireless sets. Since, the existing sets are of low frequency, the messages can easily be intercepted,” he said.

Director-general of police R.R. Prasad said the wireless sets were being replaced in East Singhbhum district only as Oraon had requested for it, but a similar step would be taken up for other district, too, if it proves helpful.

“This is a kind of experiment to replace low-frequencey wireless sets with high-frequency ones. If it proves effective, wireless sets all over the state will be replaced,” Prasad said, adding that he is not in favour of changing the sets without observing the results.

The district police authorities had discovered the interception of police communication while interrogating some hardcore rebels, who surrendered before the superintendent of police last year.

The PW rebels spilled the beans saying FM band transistors were being widely used in intercepting police communication.

According to the sources, 40 wireless sets were received by the district police before the Lok Sabha election here.

These sets were pressed into service to maintain law and order in the Ghatshila sub-division during the poll.

According to the police, the high-frequency wireless sets cannot be intercepted and remain operational in any altitude.