Three held over ‘credit card data theft’ granted bail

A judicial magistrate has granted post-arrest bail to three suspects in a case pertaining to alleged theft of credit card data.

Judicial Magistrate (East) Yusra Ashfaq granted bail to Fahad Ghouri, Muhammad Ahsan, and Muhammad Saad Khan against a surety of Rs50,000 each. She observed that the accused were named in the FIR with specific allegations of involvement in cyber theft and targeting foreign nationals by obtaining sensitive information of their credit cards.

"However, the record reveals that the accused were arrested without proper authorization," she said, adding, "Notably, there is no evidence of a private victim or affected person coming forward to report the alleged offense, and no foreign national has filed a complaint regarding the purported fraud."

The magistrate noted that there was no indication of financial gain or monetary benefits accruing to the accused persons or any alleged transactions in their accounts, which raised question about the motive and intent behind the alleged actions.

"This lack of evidence, combined with the absence of a complainant or affected party, makes the case fall under the ambit of further inquiry to determine the validity of the allegations and the potential for a more complex investigation," she said.

Defence lawyer Mian Rafiu Ahmed Tunio contended that the prosecution had failed to produce any solid evidence that directly linked his clients with the alleged scam. He said that the FIR was based on assumptions and suspicious with no independent verification of their involvement.

He argued that as per the prosecution, electronic devices were recovered during a raid, but there was no independent witness to confirm this, adding that alleged seizure was therefore questionable and did not meet with the legal standard for evidence.

According to the prosecution, Federal Investigation Agency Cyber Crime Reporting Centre lodged an FIR stating that accused Fahad, Ahsan, Saad and others were found involved in an alleged scam involving electronic fraud, unauthorised access of bank accounts, operating an illegal call center and data theft.