KARACHI: The Federal Investi­gation Ag­­e­ncy (FIA) re-arrested journalist Farhan Mal­lick on Wednesday in a new case, in which a judicial magistrate (Malir) handed over his custody to FIA for five days for further interrogation.

Mr Mallick was booked in a case pertaining to his alleged involvement in the theft of credit card data through “spoofed calls”.

A day earlier, a judicial magistrate (East) had rejected the FIA’s request to extend Mr Mallick’s custody in an “anti-state” case and sent him to prison on judicial remand.

However, defence counsel Abdul Moiz Jaferii moved an application against FIA before the court, stating that instead of handing over Mr Mallick’s custody to the jail concerned, the FIA illegally kept him in custody and implicated him in a new bogus case.

Mr Mallick, along with two others, were implicated in a case for offences under Sections 3 (unauthorised access to information system or data, 4 (unauthorised copying or transmission of data), 6 (unauthorised access to critical infrastructure information system or data), 13 (electronic forgery), 14 (electronic forger), 16 (unauthorised use of identity information) and 26 (spoofing) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, read with Section 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 109 (abetment ) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to contents of the FIR lodged on Tuesday (March 25), on the complaint of Asad Ali, the FIA team had raided the office of 5radtehies — an alleged call centre — situated in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, where employees (agents) were found engaged in illegal activities involving spoofed calls through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software.

They allegedly contacted foreign nationals, falsely claiming to be representatives of the security department of Master and Visa banking systems, it added.

The FIA claimed that the suspects lured victims by promising to lower interest rates and taxes on their loans, thereby obtaining their confidential credentials.

It further stated that these credit cards were then charged by merchants, who subsequently transferred the illegally obtained money to designated bank accounts of the suspects.

The FIA claimed that these payments were handled by the company’s owner/partner, Hassan Najeeb Alam, while another suspect, Syed Muhammad Atir Hussain, allegedly disclosed to the FIA that these illegal activities were being carried out under the patronage of Mr Mallick.

At the outset of hearing on Wednesday, the investigating officer Aftab Gohar Watto brought Mr Mallick along with Hassan Najeeb Alam and Syed Muhammad Atir Hussain before Judicial Magistrate (Malir) Piayr Ali Khoso and sought his physical custody till April 8. The IO informed the court that the suspects were allegedly involved in cybercrime and needed to be interrogated.

Advocate Jaferii contended that the allegations against Mr Mallick were baseless and that the FIA had no material evidence in the case, except for the alleged statements of two suspects against him.

After hearing both sides, the court remanded Mr Mallick in FIA custody for five days and directed IO to submit a progress report at the next hearing.

The court is set to hear Mr Mallick’s post-arrest bail plea on Thursday in a case related to uploading allegedly anti-state content on his YouTube platform, Raftar.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2025