Great Britain I allegedly fake news on Tuesday regarding the recent violent riots caused by Lahore The police had detained a man named Farhan Asif from the Defense Housing Authority, who is being further investigated by the cyber crime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
The investigation report of accused Farhan Asif has been prepared on behalf of FIA.
According to this report received by Independent Urdu, a transaction case has also been registered against the accused in 2017, in which the police arrested him but he was released after paying the money.
According to the report, all the records of the accused have been obtained, including bank accounts, social media accounts, and travel information. The record of his going out of the country only once has been found.
What was found in the preliminary information?
After preliminary investigation, FIA cybercrime wing has also registered a case against Farhan Asif. A case was registered under Section 9 and 10A of the PICA Act.
This case was registered in the complaint of the Technical Assistant of Cybercrime, in which it is said that during the investigation, the accused Farhan Asif has confessed to the crime.
The accused shared pictures of the stabbing incident in England on the X account and the X account handler also posted the article on the website.
In this article, 17-year-old Ali al-Shakati was held responsible for the stabbing incident. The article falsely claimed that the arrested person was a Muslim and also described the attacker as a refugee in the UK, sparking riots on social media over the false claim.
The X account holder was identified as Farhan Asif. Farhan Asif also admitted to giving false information to a foreign channel. In the information, the accused tried to blame others.
During the investigation, it was confirmed that the X account belonged to the accused, two laptops and a mobile phone were recovered from the accused.
The accused told the investigation team that he is a web developer and earns money by spreading controversial news. They also shared the false post and information of the alleged killer of girls in UK to other global platforms to blame someone else but none published it except Channel 3 Now.
Hafiz Bilal, a businessman who is suing Farhan Asif, told Independent Urdu about his personality that, ‘He is a quarrelsome person and is not of good character even in money transactions.’
After the accused was taken into custody, the police said that action will be taken against him under the Cyber Crime Act.
But according to Faisal Bajwa Advocate, an expert in cybercrime law, ‘unless there is a complainant against an accused, effective local action against him is not allowed in law.’
‘Farhan Asif is not related to practical journalism’
According to the information received from the team investigating accused Farhan Asif, 31-year-old Farhan Asif is a native of Lahore and has studied B.Sc. Computer Science.
He got married six years ago, has two sons, wife is a housewife.
He is a web developer by profession, he has nothing to do with practical journalism. He is not a member of any journalism organization in Lahore or Pakistan, nor was he known by most professional journalists before the incident.
Farhan Asif traveled abroad only once in his life in 2023. According to the documents obtained by the investigation team, he went to Saudi Arabia only once to perform Umrah.
According to the information received by the investigation team, Farhan Asif has two bank accounts and two mobile banking accounts. His connection with any terrorist organization has not been proved yet.
However, there is an FIR, lodged in 2017 by Hafiz Bilal, a businessman of Azam Cloth Market, in which a transaction of Rs 2.5 lakh was disputed.
The police arrested him in this case and he was released by the court the next day after paying the money. There were no suspicious transactions in their bank account details either.
According to the investigation team, the accused also earn money by giving information to various websites as a freelancer, however their own accounts are also monetized under different names.
The suspect posted on July 20 regarding the murder of three girls in the UK. The article was captioned ’17-year-old Ali al-Shakati arrested in Southport murder case’. The accused’s false accusation and fake post went viral on social media.
According to the investigation team: ‘Farhan Asif’s post led to violent incidents.’
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The accused has admitted to sharing false information with international media during investigation.
According to the team: ‘The accused wanted the fake news to be blamed on another news forum. He also admitted to earning huge amount of money from his social media platforms through monetization. The accused continued to spread false and baseless news just by earning from social media. His YouTube and Facebook IDs have been blocked in the UK.’
Hafiz Bilal, the businessman who filed the FIR against Farhan, while talking to Independent Urdu said that ‘Farhan Asif had a clothing business many years ago. He borrowed five lakh rupees of cloth but did not pay the money. Whenever he asked for money, he tried to fight. He is a quarrelsome man. He gave us a check for 2.5 lakh only while taking the cloth, which was dishonored due to lack of money in the bank account. So we filed an FIR on that basis and the police arrested him.
“He paid only two and a half lakh rupees on the basis of this check in the court and was released, but the remaining two and a half lakh has not been paid yet.”
Legal action challenge
According to DIG Organized Crime Lahore, Imran Kishor, “The British government had pointed out Farhan Asif involved in spreading fake news and recommended action against him.”
According to FIA Additional Director Sarfraz Chaudhry, ‘Action is being taken against accused Farhan Asif under cyber terrorism.’
But according to Faisal Bajwa, a legal expert on cybercrime, ‘in our law, in the area where the crime is committed, the relevant agencies have the authority to take action. Because these incidents have taken place in the United Kingdom, action against the suspects involved in it can also be taken by their institutions under the law there. Under cybercrime, the accused can be arrested from Pakistan or from any other country on British recommendation, but the nature of trial in the courts here for effective legal action against him cannot be the same as in the area where the crime took place. ‘
He said that ‘Indeed, there has been an uproar in Britain due to his fake news and the Pakistanis living there were also made unsafe by this act. But the crime was committed in the UK, so they can ask for his extradition if they so desire. But we have to look at the international laws about this, whether there is any agreement to extradite the suspects from Pakistan to Britain? If not, then an arrest warrant can be taken, but it is a long process.’
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2024-08-21 13:17:34