A Lahore judicial magistrate on Monday awarded three days of physical remand to seven National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) officials and a private individual in a case registered against them for allegedly misusing their authority, extorting money, and taking bribes.
Last week, a Lahore court granted the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) a three-day physical remand of the officials, while a judicial magistrate extended their physical remand for three more days on Friday.
According to a copy of the remand order available with media.com, while the initial allegation involved a bribe of Rs9 million, the amount recovered by the investigating officer was Rs42.5m.
“After hearing argument and perusal of record, it transpires that complainant … moved [an] application that she paid [Rs9m] illegal gratification to Shoaib Riaz AD/FIA, who was [the] investigation officer (IO) in [the] case of her husband,” the order read.
“Complainant also alleged that she got knowledge that a corruption network in NCCIA is active. On which IO made inquiry and found all accused persons/NCCIA officials were found in [the] alleged corruption network. He recorded statements of all [the] accused in which they mentioned details of amount, reason and procedure.”
The remand order noted that Rs9m was recovered from the prime accused, NCCIA Lahore Assistant Director Shoaib Riaz, while the remaining Rs33.5m was recovered from five others.
The magistrate awarded remand due to the amount of money recovered during the previous two periods of remand, extending it by another three days.
The hearing
During today’s hearing, the FIA prosecutor requested additional remand, arguing that the accused were involved in a “white-collar crime” and that information needed to be gathered about the victims.
The prosecutor stated that “Rs45.8m has been recovered from the accused. The accused needs to be investigated further.”
The lawyer for the accused said it was “strange” that the FIA had no plaintiff in the case and that “they are still looking for them”.
“There has been no statement issued against the accused,” advocate Mian Ali Ashfaq, the representative for the accused, argued.
“This case is weak; they (the prosecutors) are alleging that [the accused] take bribes from call centres,” a lawyer for the accused argued. “There is no name or statement from the call centre.”
Ashfaq argued that the case is “ideal” for dismissal, arguing, “The FIA had four opportunities to investigate, but it was not done. The case was made and was operating on verbal testimony.”
He further argued that there is no scope in financial crimes for verbal testimony and asked why, in a bribery case, details about sums of money and serial numbers were not included.
“There is no such declaration on the record,” Ashfaq stated. “They can continue their investigation and appear before the court again when all their records are collected.”
The federal government established the NCCIA to probe illegal activities on social media. The NCCIA, operating under the Interior Division, has a key role in combating cybercrime in Pakistan.
The first information report (FIR) of the case was registered with the FIA Anti-Corruption Circle Lahore on the complaint of Aroob Jatoi, the wife of YouTuber Saadur Rehman alias Ducky Bhai, who was arrested in a case pertaining to promoting gambling apps on social media.
The FIR, a copy of which is available with media, was registered by a total of nine individuals, including eight NCCIA officials, at 7:35pm. Among them, the six remanded in the FIA custody were said to be missing for several days before the FIA announced their arrest last week.
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