Qari remanded for blackmailing family with obscene pictures

A local court on Saturday remanded a religious teacher in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in a case pertaining to the sexual harassment of his 13-year-old female student and the blackmailing of her family.

The suspect, namely Qari Abdul Qadeem, had been arrested over the complaint of a woman that he was sexually abusing her daughter and then blackmailing the mother into fulfilling his “unethical demands” with the teenager’s obscene pictures.

The District East judicial magistrate sent Qadeem in the custody of the FIA for three days on physical remand and ordered the investigating officer of the case, namely Inspector Mumtaz Hussain, to file a progress report.

The woman’s complaint had been registered on December 29, following which a team of the FIA carried out a raid in Block 3 of the Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighbourhood to arrest the suspect, and found obscene pictures of the minor girl on his phone.

The complainant said that she had hired Qadeem to teach the Holy Quran to her daughter, who later complained to her mother that the teacher had been molesting her and had also taken obscene pictures of her.

The IO said that Qadeem sent the obscene pictures of the girl to her mother on WhatsApp and threatened the family that he would circulate the photos on social media if his “unethical demands” were not met.

The officer said that the mobile phone and the USB device recovered from the suspect had been technically analysed, on the basis of which the case had been established as an offence of child pornography.

The FIR of the case was registered at the FIA Cybercrime Reporting Centre Karachi under sections 22 (spamming) and 24 (legal recognition of offences committed in relation to information system) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, read with Section 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

On Friday the Cybercrime Circle of the FIA had arrested the religious teacher for the alleged sexual abuse of the minor. “A brave mother reported that she had appointed a Qari, namely Abdul Qadeem, for teaching Quran to her daughter at her home but the man sexually abused the girl,” said a spokesperson for the FIA.

The mother also complained that the suspect had obscene pictures of her daughter in his possession, on the basis of which he was blackmailing the family and demanding money.

The FIA spokesperson said the case was professionally handled by the agency and the minor girl was being provided with counselling by a stress counsellor. He added that after getting the approval of the competent authority, a raid was conducted in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, from where Qadeem was arrested.