KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency on Thursday claimed to have arrested a suspect on charges of sexually harassing a woman and making her objectionable videos, additional director of the Cybercrime Circle Faizullah Korejo said.

The held suspect used to present himself as an officer of a “sensitive institution” belonging to an influential family, added the officer.

The FIA seized two mobile phones and a memory card from his custody, which contained objectionable videos of women.

He had prepared fake Facebook IDs of the woman complainant, added her relatives and sent her pictures to them. The suspect, a resident of Garden East, is married with two children, said Mr Korejo.

Another officer, deputy director of cybercrime, Abdul Ghaffar, said that they had registered an FIR (22/2019) against the held suspect under sections 20 (offences against dignity of natural person), 21 (offences against modesty of natural person) 24 (cyberstalking) of PECA and 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The officer said that they had received a complaint from a woman resident of Nazimabad, stating that the held suspect had created a Facebook ID in her name and uploaded her pictures.

The woman complainant stated that “during friendship, he [suspect] took many obscene pictures and [was] now blackmailing me and allegedly also sent my videos to my cousins and family members”.

The complainant said that when she came to know that the suspect was married, she stopped talking to him but he allegedly resorted to firing at her home and also threatened to kill her father.

He also allegedly beat her, cut her hair and eyebrows with a blade and gave her electric shocks. The woman said that because of uploading of her pictures and videos, her engagement was also broken.

After recording her statement, an FIA team led by Sub-inspector Sabeen Ghori conducted a raid at an office of the held suspect located on Tariq Road and arrested him and seized a mobile phone from him. The authorities on information obtained from the held suspect also seized another mobile phone from his Garden East home.

During the interrogation, the suspect “voluntarily” surrendered the passwords of the Facebook IDs through which he had uploaded the obscene/objectionable pictures and videos of the complainant.

Suspect remanded

A local court on Thursday remanded the suspect in the custody of the FIA for five days.

The investigating officer produced the detained suspect before a judicial magistrate to seek his physical custody for completion of the investigation and other legal formalities in the present case.

Allowing the request, the judge remanded the suspect in the custody of the FIA for five days with direction to produce him on the next date along with an investigation report.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2019