FIA arrests man for abusing, blackmailing woman for four years

The Cybercrime Circle of the Federal Investigation Agency on Thursday claimed to have arrested a man for his alleged involvement in blackmailing, harassing and physically abusing a woman for years in Karachi.

Editorial: Online blackmail

According to an FIA spokesperson, two raids were conducted by the Cybercrime Circle on directives issued by the deputy director the FIA Karachi Cybercrime Circle to catch the suspect, Ali Akbar Soomro, son of Abdul Razzaq Soomro.

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The spokesperson said the man was involved in blackmail, harassment and physical abuse, and he was arrested at his shop and a mobile seized from his possession. During the initial course of interrogation, Soomro said he owned one more mobile phone, which was brought to the FIA from his house in Garden.

The woman said in her statement that she came into contact with Soomro on the birthday party of a friend. They started a friendship. Soon, the man was said to have insisted that she accompany him to a birthday party at a farmhouse.

The complainant said she ignored his invitation, but he later forced her into attending the party. At the farmhouse, she said, Soomro resorted to physical intimidation and he even recorded what he had done to her through a digital watch camera.

He again called her after one week but she refused to go with him. However, when he sent her the farmhouse video, she felt compelled to go with him for the second time. This, the woman alleged, led to a series of blackmail visits to the farmhouse, where the man abused her physically.

She said Soomro always used delay tactics in getting married whenever she asked him to marry her; however, after a span of four years, he told her that he was already married and had a daughter. She stopped talking to him upon which he opened fire at her home, broke the windows of a car and asked her to meet him for two minutes; otherwise, he would kill her father. When she went to meet him again, he beat her up, cut her hair, shaved her eyebrows off and gave her electric shocks.

Acting on her complaint, FIA officials arrested the man and lodged an FIR under sections 20, 21 and 24 of the PECA 2016 read with Section 419 of the PPC. The man was produced before a court, which granted five days of physical remand of the suspect to the FIA investigators.