LAHORE: A female schoolteacher of a small village in Kharian refused to make out-of-court settlement with her tormentor who uploaded her objectionable pictures on her Facebook account.

On Tuesday, she said her persistent standing against the cyber crime suspect was redeemed when an additional session judge, Lahore, handed down two-year imprisonment to him (Yasir Lateef) and also imposed a fine of Rs30,000 on charges of uploading her objectionable pictures on her Facebook account after hacking it in order to blackmail her.

Although the new cyber crime law - the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act - has been introduced in the country in August last, the court convicted him on the charges framed against him under the Electronic Transaction Ordinance as the case was registered in May.

The woman, who refused to bow down to pressures from the area elders and the family of the suspect to withdraw the complaint against Yasir, said she after fighting the case for months eventually got ‘justice’.

A Federal Investigation Agency official told Dawn that the married woman had put on a brave face despite all pressures to withdraw her complaint to make out-of-court settlement. “In fact she has set an example for other such victims not to remain silent,” he said.

“These were tormenting months since I approached the FIA and had a case registered against Yasir for uploading my pictures on Facebook after hacking it. There were moments when I thought to withdraw the case because of different internal and external pressures but I decided to pursue it. Thank God today the suspect got what he deserved for playing with my life,” she was quoted as having said by the FIA official.

He said Yasir who lived in her locality, first hacked her Facebook account and threatened to upload her ‘morphed’ pictures if she did not develop relations with her. “On her refusal he uploaded the pictures. She braved the humiliation after this but did not surrender to his demand. She approached the FIA Lahore that investigated the matter and arrested Yasir, a painter by profession, subsequently,” the official said, adding the agency declared him guilty of the charges.

The FIA said the suspect also confessed to his crime before the court which led to his conviction.

FIA Punjab Director Dr Usman Anwar has appreciated the investigators and asked such victims to approach the agency.

Under the new cyber law, the offence related to the modesty of a person like superimposing a photograph of a person over any sexually explicit image or video to harm his/her reputation or to take revenge or blackmail is punishable by up to five-year jail or a fine of Rs5 million.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2016