LAHORE The failure to save some 100 cars from being lifted in the Punjab metropolis in the recent weeks has put a question mark on the future of over 50 companies supplying vehicle trackers. The business of these firms might see a dead-end sooner not later as an illegal device, called jammer, has bore fruitful results for the car-lifters. However the case may be, the tracker companies have taken different route and are now providing services to their customers in other fields. A tracker is installed in a vehicles electric water-pump or on other operational machinery to point out the movement and location of that vehicle. Since its introduction in the local market a few years back hundred of thousands of customers have got the device installed in their vehicles. However, the thieves have proved to be more clever than the tracker companies. They place a jammer inside the vehicle they want to lift. As a result the target vehicle becomes dysfunctional and is easily lifted, a senior police said while talking to this scribe. A wing commander with a local tracker company, however, informed this paper that installing trackers inside vehicles was a secondary purpose. The primary goal of the device was to secure human lives. Actually, each tracker providing company is working for Fleet Management. Once we install a tracker inside a car, the customer can detect each and every movement of his vehicle, the route it has taken, what speed it is going on and how much fuel is left in it. All these jobs are done by the tracker, he added. A car showroom owner, however, completely declined any real tracker ever existed. He said: Only a SIM card is installed inside a vehicle. Its location is then traced on the patterns of a cell phone, which can give details and location of the caller. According to him, the tracker companies are nowadays luring the car showrooms by offering them packages that include junkets to Europe. Yes, if I arrange for them 50 customers to get trackers installed then the company providing the device would offer me a special tour to any European country. They would offer me some money as well, he remarked. Organised Crime Investigation Agencys (CIAs) SP Omer Virk said over 100 vehicles with latest tracking-system on them had been lifted in the City during the past several weeks. I have arrested a large number of car lifters, who accepted to have placed the jammers on the vehicles before those were stolen. Omer Virk believes that the introduction of jammers in the open market was further deteriorating the situation. According to rules and regulation, not a single jammer is installed in any building without prior permission of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. With the PTAs permission, yes. Jammers, however, could be installed at banks, sensitive buildings, important mosques and other areas, according to a senior PTA officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He, however, admitted that the chief negligence was being committed on the part of the PTA. A large number of jammers are being used by thieves and other law-breaking elements. During a press briefing several days back, Iqbal Town SP Muntazir Mehdi had said that an illegal jammer was recovered from a car lifter. But after this revelation, no other car lifter has been arrested. The PTA issues licence to tracking companies against huge amounts of money. It also receives 0.5 percent per per annum of the total income from these tracking companies, a local tracking company owner said, requesting his name not be mentioned.