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KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) has ordered the transfer of a fake document case to a sessions court, citing a lack of jurisdiction.
The case involves three suspects accused of creating fake documents for foreign nationals, including North Koreans, to help them secure remote IT jobs.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had booked three suspects, Aliya Batool Zaidi, her brother-in-law Syed Sohail Mehdi and Syed Kazim, on a letter received from the Ministry of Interior regarding the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) report.
The MSMT report alleged that it had identified a Pakistan based entity (The Solution Tree) and an individual, Aliya Batool, as “key facilitators” of remote IT worker activities by consistently providing fraudulent credentials with fraudulent passports, driver’s licence, social security cards, utility bills, bank accounts statements and university diplomas to using Ethereum and USDC cryptocurrency and through payment platforms like Payoneer.
According to the FIR, after receiving the complaint, the federal agency apprehended Batool, who allegedly disclosed during interrogation to the FIA that she used to work with her brother-in-law’s IT company and she had been involved in image editing and creation of fake documents.
She further disclosed that “orders for these fraudulent credentials were received from foreign clients based in the USA, China, Hawaii, DPRK, Ukraine and other countries by Syed Sohail Mehdi which subsequently were forwarded to her for forgery compilations.”
The FIR said that on a lead provided by the suspect the agency apprehended her brother-in-law and seized digital evidence.
Later, Batool moved an application through her counsel Abid Zaman and Osama Ali before ATC-II judge, seeking post-arrest bail in the case.
During arguments, the court put the FIA on notice whether the allegations contained in the FIR, challan and material placed on record constitute an offence of terrorism and the jurisdiction of the ATC.
However, the FIA and the IO failed to satisfy the court and the judge directed the transfer of the case to the sessions judge (South).
The court noted that “no material has been produced by the prosecution demonstrating any nexus with a proscribed organisation, or any act falling within the mischief of Section 6 ATA. Thus, the essential ingredients to invoke jurisdiction of this court are conspicuously absent.”
“This court is of the considered opinion that the allegations, even if taken at their face value, constitute offences triable under the Pakistan Penal Code and do not fall within the ambit of terrorism as defined under jurisdiction to try the case; therefore, the case in hand is transferred to District and Sessions Court Karachi South,” the court noted.
The court observed that upon examining the records, which revealed that allegations primarily related to cheating and fraud, forgery and use of forged documents. However, it added that there was no allegation of use or threat of violence or coercion, intimidation, or creation of fear or panic in the public at large.
“The mere assertion of foreign links or alleged violation of UN-related provisions does not by itself attract the definition of terrorism,” it noted, adding: “This is essentially a white-collar/ cyber/ financial crime, not terrorism.”
A case was registered by Counter-Terrorism Wing (CTW) of the FIA under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), and 109 (abetment) of the PPC read with a section of the ATA.
Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2026
