Youth gets 8-year jail term for uploading family pictures of complainant

PESHAWAR: A local court on Wednesday sentenced a youth to eight years imprisonment and fined him Rs50, 000 after pleading guilty for making a fake Facebook account and uploading family pictures of the complainant.

Additional District and Sessions Judge, Peshawar, Kulsoom Azam awarded the sentence to Ahsan Sheraz, a resident of Peshawar, for making a fake Facebook account and uploading family pictures of the complainant.

As per the judgment, the court awarded two years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs15,000 to the accused under Section 20 of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), 2016.

The accused was awarded two years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs10, 000 under section 21 of PECA, two years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs10, 000 under section 24 of PECA and two-year imprisonment and fine of Rs15000 under section 507 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

The court passed the judgment in a case registered by the Cyber Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the complaint of Syed Mehboob Ali Shah, father of the victim girl Saeeda Maria Mehboob.

It was submitted that the first charge was framed against the accused under Section 265-C of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and the case was fixed for evidence.

“Today, counsel for the accused (Ahsan Sheraz) pointed out that an application to plead guilty had been submitted by the accused. Hence in view of the prayer of the accused to decide the case on the basis of pleading guilty he was served a show-cause notice. The accused in reply reiterated to plead his guilty and requested the court to take a lenient view in his case,” the judgment stated.

About the facts of the case, it was stated that the complainant Syed Mehboob Ali Shah filed a complaint about the Facebook account.

He had complained that some unknown persons had created a Facebook account and uploading his family pictures. It said that first the accused was running the account in the name of King Khan and then changed into Maria Khan, daughter of the complainant.

“The technical report data was requested from Facebook Inc through court subpoena against the Facebook profile mentioned above. Facebook provided the IP long activities against the Facebook profile mentioned,” the court explained.

It added the IP address from which the Facebook account was accessed, which belonged to the IP pool Pakistan Telecommunication Limited (PTCL) provided subscriber’s information against the traced IPs as “Syed Nasir Shah.”