Dania Shah’s bail plea dismissed again

A sessions court on Wednesday dismissed an application filed by Syeda Dania Shah, widow of the late televangelist and politician Aamir Liaquat Hussain, seeking post-arrest bail in a case pertaining to allegedly leaking his obscene videos on social media.

Shah was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from her house in the Lodhran district of Punjab on December 15. She has been booked for allegedly filming her husband’s obscene videos and later posting them on social media.

District and Sessions Judge (East) Abdul Naeem Memon pronounced his verdict after hearing arguments from defence and prosecution sides. Shah approached the sessions court after a judicial magistrate dismissed her bail application.

Defence lawyer Liaquat Ali Gabol argued that the FIA had no evidence to prove the charges against his client, who was the “legally wedded wife of the late lawmaker and couldn’t imagine defaming or humiliating him”. He claimed that she had been implicated in a false case.

The counsel stated that the agency has not yet submitted a final charge sheet in the case, and requested the judge to grant her post-arrest bail. On the other hand, advocate Zia Ahmed Awan, the counsel for the complainant of the case, and the FIA’s prosecutor contended that there was sufficient evidence to link the accused with the commission of the alleged offence. The court was pleaded to dismiss the bail application.

An FIR was lodged under sections 20 (malicious code), 21 (cyberstalking), and 24 (legal recognition of offences committed in relation to information system) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 on the complaint of Hussain’s daughter Dua Aamir.

On December 23, a judicial magistrate had dismissed her bail plea, observing that the case was at a premature stage of investigation and no investigation report as required under Section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) had been filed yet.

He said that though as per the FIA prosecutor all such videos had been deleted by the accused from her gadgets, they were widely circulated on social media. The material collected during the investigation thus far carried into the matter apparently connected the accused with the commissioning of the alleged offence, he added.