FIA arrests man allegedly involved in harassing girl online

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday claimed to have arrested a man in Karachi allegedly involved in digital harassment.

According to the FIA’s Cybercrime Circle director, Waqar Chauhan, an enquiry No. 136/2020 was registered in the FIA Cybercrime Circle, Karachi, on the complaint of a woman on behalf of her 14-year-old daughter against unknown persons.

The suspects were accused of threatening and harassing the girl and her cousin via WhatsApp messages. The woman said the suspects were sending obscene material of her daughter via WhatsApp and demanding extortion money. The suspects were said to have forced the victim “to fulfil their ulterior motives and illicit desires” in their threatening messages.

Following the complaint, a raid was conducted in Karachi’s PECHS area by a team headed by Inspector Saalim Rind. In the raid, an alleged person, namely Musaib Umar, was apprehended and his mobile phone was technically analysed which revealed that the obscene images of the victim were present in his mobile phone as well as his alleged IDs were also found active therein. Also, the suspect was found to impersonate himself as a girl on Instagram and sharing the obscene pictures of the minor girl in order to trap other girls. The FIA said the suspect was found involved in transmission of the obscene material of the victim to her family and others on Instagram, using an Instagram ID.

The FIA said the suspect had committed the offence punishable under Sections 21/21/24 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 read with 419/420 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

In a similar case this month, the FIA claimed to have arrested five suspects for allegedly threatening and harassing two women in Karachi. The suspects, namely Zeeshan Shareef, Abdul Nawab, Umair Nawab, Muhammad Zain and Muhammad Rizwan, were apprehended during a series of raids conducted by the FIA’s Cybercrime Circle in different areas of Karachi.

According to the FIA spokesperson, an enquiry was registered in the FIA Karachi on the complaint of one of the women against unknown persons. The complainant said the suspects were threatening and harassing her and her cousin via WhatsApp messages which contained their obscene images. She said the suspects wanted them “to fulfil their ulterior motives and illicit desires”.

The spokesperson said the mobile phones of the arrested suspects were technically analysed after which it came out that obscene images of both the victims were present in their mobile phones. The spokesperson said all suspects were found involved in transmission of the obscene material of the victims to each other as well as to the victims, using their own SIMs and WhatsApp numbers.