LAHORE: A special judicial magistrate on Thursday allowed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to lodge a case against a man for sharing derogatory stuff on social media regarding family of former chief of army staff (COAS) Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani.

The FIA cyber crime circle filed an application to the magistrate for permission to hold investigation under section 155 of CrPC in a non-cognisable offence against the suspect namely Siddiq Butt.

Senior investigator Rizwan Arshad contended that the suspect when appeared before the agency confessed that he uploaded the objectionable material on his Facebook account including pictures carelessly and mistakenly. He said the images/pictures were also extracted from the computer of the suspect.

The investigator submitted that the inquiry established that the suspect intentionally and publicly uploaded the false information including pictures against the former army chief and his family.

He said the act of the suspect was an offence under sections 20 & 24 of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016. However, he said, the offence was non-cognizable and a court’s permission was required to further proceed with the investigation and lodge a case against the suspect.

The magistrate, Amir Raza Baitu, admitted the application and permitted the FIA to proceed with the matter.

The suspect had uploaded photos of a girl with a US soldier and claimed that the girl was the retired Gen Kiyani’s daughter who married the American soldier.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2019