Muhammad Omar Farooq

In 2003 and 2004, Farooq was the secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs.^[4][5] He retired in March 2005.^[6] He was regarded as being close to Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami who allowed the party to infiltrate the security establishment of the country.^[7] Bangladesh saw a proliferation of terrorist activities and attacks on religious minorities with him at the helm of the Ministry of Home Affairs.^[7] He called for closer cooperation between the border forces of Bangladesh and India at the same time rejecting joint patrols.^[8]

On 31 March 2005, Farooq was appointed the chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.^[9] On 21 March 2006, he ordered cellphone operators to keep records of all text messages.^[10] He ordered private landline companies to submitted information on their clients including photos part of a 2005 amendment to the Bangladesh Telecommunications Act, 2001 which allows law enforcement agencies to record phone calls without warrants.^[11] He pushed through the approval of Warid Telecom to enter Bangladesh telecom market, violating rules in an attempt to the Prime Minister's Office and the royal family of Dubai who owned the company.^[12] His decision to allow landline operators to use SIM cards for limited mobility device was controversial and protested by mobile operators.^[13]

President Iajuddin Ahmed fired Farooq and other commissioners of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission on 19 November 2006 but that did not go through due to technicalities.^[13] Farooq resigned on 7 March 2007 from the post of the chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.^[6]

Former Commissioner of the Chittagong Metropolitan Police S. M. Sabbir Ali had implicated Farooq in the 2004 arms and ammunition haul in Chittagong in his testimony in 2012.^[14]