The Cyber Crime Circle of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) claims to have arrested a young student for allegedly blackmailing a girl via the social networking website, Facebook, a local media reported.
The accused, 21-year-old Abdul Moiz, was arrested on Thursday night during a raid at his residence in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. He was shifted to the Crime Circle for further questioning. The Cyber Crime Circle took action on the complaint of a man, Saleem, who had approached the FIA against his daughter’s harassment. The complainant, in his written application, had informed the FIA that his daughter was being harassed and blackmailed through a fake Facebook account. “Someone is harassing and blackmailing my daughter using a Facebook account in my daughter’s name and displaying her picture,” explained the complainant. It took around one-and-a-half months to trace and arrest the suspect. “Finally, we managed to trace the suspect by using technical resources and arrested him,” Cyber Crime Circle official Habibur Rehman said.
The suspect, Moiz, is a student of Iqra University, and had been indulging in these activities since the last few months. The victim is also a student of a reputed university in Karachi. “The girl and the accused were schoolmates and were good friends but when he [accused] noticed the girl was avoiding him and chatting with another boy, he decided to blackmail her to take revenge,” the officer explained, while quoting the initial investigation. The officer said that the accused is on remand and will be questioned further as a case has been registered against him. Cyber crimes are on the rise in Pakistan and hundreds of cases of blackmailing or threats through social media occur each year. Due to the unavailability of a cybercrime law, officials of the Cyber Crime Circle use the Electronic Transaction Ordinance, 2002, and the Pakistan Penal Code to make their cases which usually give benefit to the suspects.