The Federal Investigation Agency's (FIA) cybercrime wing on Friday issued a statement saying they had suspended an official for acting as the unofficial spokesperson for the agency.

"Assistant Director Asif Iqbal was suspended and issued an explanation for maintaining a private Twitter account bearing CCW which stands for CyberCrime Wing. He was acting as the spokesman of the wing on his own accord without permission which is against disciplinary rules," a statement posted by the wing's spokesman on Facebook said.

A day earlier, FIA Director (cybercrime wing) Amir Farooqi had issued a notification and suspended the official, Muhammad Asif Iqbal, with immediate effect.

Dawn had earlier quoted an official source as saying that Iqbal was suspended on the basis of a tweet, in which he shed light on a section of the cyber crime law. The tweet came days after an FIR was registered by FIA's cyber crime wing against Meesha Shafi and eight others for their alleged involvement in a smear campaign against singer-actor Ali Zafar.

The tweet in question said: "Whoever publicly exhibits false information that harms the reputation of a person, is [committing] a crime U/S 20 of Cybercrime Act.”

It added that the law prescribes three years imprisonment or one million fine, or both, for a person involved in propagation of fake news through social media that harms the reputation of another person.