FIA launches crackdown on cyber, anti-social elements

Islamabad: The Cybercrime Circle (CCC) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), hunted down child pornographers, and activists of the ‘Dark Web’ involved in sexual harassment within ten days.

The FIA has already launched a countrywide crackdown against the ‘Dark Web’ and targeting child pornography, Director Cyber Crime Islamabad, Waqaruddin Syed said when contacted by this correspondent.

“The prime priorities of the newly appointed Director General (DG) FIA are hunting down the gangsters engrossed in Child Pornography, Sexual harassment and Human Trafficking, causing notoriety and humiliation for the country,” The Director maintained and added that objectives have initiated at satisfactory echelon and have achieved more than expectations at the early stages of operations.

One week statistics compiled by the relevant department of the FIA said that more or less 33 gangsters engrossed in Child Pornography and 28 blackmailers engaged in sexual harassment have been tracked down active in the Punjab, KPK, Sindh, and Baluchistan,

The gangsters attached with the ‘Dark Web’ and running the trade of Child Pornography, were 33 in number and the count of episodes of child pornography that occurred in the Federal Capital Islamabad was found 13, a much higher count as compared to the happenings of other areas of the country.

The Anti Human Traffic Cell (AHTC), has rounded up 52 human smugglers during the same span of time, the sources said, adding that the three most wanted human traffics are included on the Red List.

The human traffickers were arrested from all four provinces but the majority of cases were registered in Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Gujar Khan, Jehlum, Kharian, Lala Musa, Wazirabad, Gujrat, Lahore, Haiderabad, and Karachi.

The spokesman of the FIA, said when contacted that according to preliminary investigation, digital media associated with alleged content, social media accounts, sexual images, and videos of children were also recovered from the people engaged in the child pornography kept in the mobile phone of the suspects.

The gangsters engrossed with child pornography and sexual harassment, have been booked under PECA Act.

In the perspective of Human Trafficking, the spokesman said that the authorities have constituted policies to effectively counter the internationally regretted act of Human Trafficking to clean the dark spot from the face of our country, adding that the bosses of FIA have continued to work closely with provincial police, police training colleges, federal and provincial departments, and judicial academies for awareness and capacity building on the implementation of trafficking laws and rules for the PTPA.

He said that following the policies of FIA authorities, the US State department admired the efforts made to eradicate Human Trafficking and resultantly, Pakistan’s position has been upgraded to Tier 2 in TIP report 2021-22.