LAHORE: The Cyber Crime Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) carried out province-wide raids on Thursday for the arrest of some senior journalists, lawyers, TikTokers and arrested three of them for spreading ‘alleged’ rape story of a private girls college student which incited students and general public to hold violent protests across Punjab since Monday last.

A senior FIA official said teams have arrested Raja Ahsan Naveed, an employee of the National Assembly, Faisal Jutt advocate, a TikToker and Umar Daraz Gondal who allegedly instigated students to launch an armed and violent movement.

He said raids were conducted to nab 38 senior journalists and TikTokers who were nominated in the FIR for spreading false information on social media regarding the alleged rape.

Prominent among them are Jameel Farooqi, Ayyaz Amir, Imran Riaz, Naeem Bukhari, Sami Ibrahim, Farha Iqrar, activist of PTI Tayyaba Raja, Ehtisham Ali Abbasi, Misbah Advocate, Faysal Shahzad, Fareed Shahzad, Muqaddas Farooq Awan, Shakir Mehmood Awan, Saddam K Tareen, Ahmad Bobak, Abdullah Warraich, Mian Omer Advocate, Haseeb Ahmad, Syed Khaliqur Rehman, Chaudhry Ikhlas Gujjar, Malik Gul Nawaz Soiya etc.

Arrests three, searching for 38 others; student expresses regrets over sharing false narrative; Azma blames ISF for inciting violence; CCPO says 55 arrested in Lahore

The official said most of the senior journalists nominated in the FIR had either gone underground or fled to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when the FIA teams carried out raids for their arrests on their identified locations.

He said the FIA was trying to get updates about their new locations they were changing rapidly.

The FIR was registered in the light of an inquiry conducted by the cyber crime wing of the FIA (Lahore) on the complaint of Punjab College for Women (Gulberg) Principal Sadia Yousuf. He said the FIA was also using all other options to get red warrants of suspects who were operating social media accounts from abroad.

“We are also going to write to Facebook and Instagram to initiate further action against the account-holders involved in spreading false propaganda”, the official said.

On the other hand, Principal Sadia Yousuf alleged in the FIR that the `dirty’ social media campaigns aggravated protests. “After the instigation on social media, an unguided and violent mob attacked our campus in Gulberg,” reads the FIR.

She said some students were snubbed by the vice principal of the Gulberg Campus for making videos of other students and staff without their permission during college hours.

“Soon a violent mob started attacking our staff and damaging the building badly,” the principal said, adding that this protest spread to other cities of the province due to social media campaign.

According to FIA, technical reports of the cyber crime wing had identified social media accounts of 38 senior journalists, lawyers and TikTokers who were found involved in sharing the news of the alleged fake propaganda against the Punjab Group of Colleges, thereby, instigating the general public to involve in ransacking the government and private infrastructure.

“These users/profiles have been found involved in propagating/disseminating false propaganda to defame the complainant’s institute and to incite the general public to get involved in violence,” alleges the FIR.

“Such violence-inducing content/posts made intentionally and publicly by the aforementioned social media accounts may cause or is likely to cause fear and alarm in the public or in any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquility or incite or like to incite any class or community to commit any offence against any other class or community on the ground of spreading anarchy, division in the social fabric, hatred between the people by making such violence-inducing posts,” reads the FIR.

Principal Saadia Yousaf held the press conference alongside several female students. One of the students involved in the controversy expressed regrets over her role in spreading the false narrative.

She said that she hastily created a video based on unverified information and shared within a students social media group. “All the girls were sharing posts in our group, and my classmates encouraged me to make a video about it,” she said. “Without doing any proper research, I did a vlog and uploaded it. I deeply regret my actions, and I want to apologize for contributing to the spread of misinformation. I am here today, of my own free will, to take responsibility for my mistake.”

The FIA said after-effects of sharing such a false propaganda resulted in the destruction of government and private infrastructure at the hands of violent mobs.

Separately, Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Bilal Siquque Kamyana said that the police had arrested 55 suspects during the last two days for carrying out violent protests.

Flanked by Lahore Operations DIG, the CCPO held a press conference and said that the action was initiated when protesters attacked police with patrol bombs and burnt seven police motorbikes.

“I myself examined CCTV recording for 12 hours when it was claimed that the incident had occurred on Oct 2”, he said, adding no evidence of rape was found.

ISF blamed

Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari says the government has evidence that the Insaf Students Federation of the PTI incited and provoked students to carry out violent protests. “The PTI has tarnished the dignity of the student and her family under a planned scheme,” she said in a statement here on Thursday.

She claimed that students had been provoked through official PTI pages . “Former officials of the ISF continuously provoked students.” She said videos were available to prove the official stand.“

She said the situation in all cities of Punjab, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Gujranwala was normal. She said that police were fulfilling their responsibilities to maintain law and order, and no one would be allowed to disrupt peace in Punjab.

Zulqernain Tahir and Imran Gabol also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2024