ISLAMABAD: A cleric charged with uploading a viral video containing derogatory, contemptuous and scandalous language against the institution of the judiciary and judges, especially Supreme Court’s Justice Qazi Faez Isa, has approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) seeking post-arrest bail.

Mirza Iftikharuddin, in his petition, contended that he never even thought of disrespecting the judiciary but was implicated in a false case. He said he is a cardiac patient and may be released till the decision in the pending trial.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed took suo motu notice of the viral video.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested the cleric and registered an FIR against him under different sections of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).

The investigation report explained that the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses used by the cleric and his accomplice for uploading the video had been traced and the concerned Internet Service Providers (ISPs) approached to provide the subscribers detail of the internet devices through which IP addresses were accessed.

According to the FIA, the operators concerned have also been approached to obtain Character Detection and Recognition (CDR) and subscriber’s details of the SIMs under the use of the two persons to unearth their probable nexus with others.

On the basis of the video clip, Justice Isa’s wife on June 24 lodged a case at the Islamabad Secretariat police station, complaining that death threats were being hurled on the judge.

Meanwhile, the FIA in its report stated that the investigation on the basis of the FIR under Section 7 of the ATA read with sections 34, 500, 505 and 506 of the PPC and section 20 of the Prevention of Electronic Crime Act (Peca) had been entrusted to a Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprising Assistant Directors Khurram Saeed Rana, Mohammad Azmat Khan and Adnan Khan and FIA’s counterterrorism wing Inspector Raja Wajid Hussain.

During the course of investigation, the two suspects, Mirza and Akbar, were arrested from whom mobile phones, a movie camera and a laptop were recovered and sent for forensic analysis.

According to the FIA, the cleric has owned the contents of the video and stated that his responsibility was to preach Islamic teachings. Besides, he admitted that he had been running a web TV since 2017 in one of the rooms of his residence. His accomplice Akbar recorded his lectures and uploaded/managed his Youtube channel and Facebook page, the report said.

The FIA said Mirza admitted that on June 14, he addressed six or seven namazis of the locality where his assistant Akbar and Rasool Shah were also present. Akbar recorded the speech through the movie camera, edited and uploaded it without his consent on Youtube channel and Facebook page.

Mirza claimed when he came to know about uploading the video, he immediately asked his aide to delete it. However, Akbar claimed that he became frightened and deleted the video when one of the page followers of Mirza told him that it amounted to contempt of court.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2020