LAHORE: Three senior journalists, lawyers, and TikTokers were detained on Thursday by the Cyber Crime Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for spreading an “alleged” rape story about a private girls college student, which sparked violent protests by students and the general public across Punjab since Monday.
According to a senior FIA official, teams have detained Raja Ahsan Naveed, a National Assembly employee, Faisal Jutt, a TikToker, and Umar Daraz Gondal, who is accused of encouraging students to start an armed and violent movement.
He stated that raids were carried out in order to capture 38 senior journalists and TikTokers who were named in the FIR for disseminating false information about the alleged rape on social media.
Jameel Farooqi, Ayyaz Amir, Imran Riaz, Naeem Bukhari, Sami Ibrahim, Farha Iqrar, PTI activist Tayyaba Raja, Ehtisham Ali Abbasi, Misbah Advocate, Faysal Shahzad, Fareed Shahzad, Muqaddas Farooq Awan, Shakir Mehmood Awan, Saddam K Tareen, Ahmad Bob
Captures three, looking for 38 others; Student apologizes for sharing a false story; Azma attributes ISF’s incitement to violence; According to the official, the majority of the senior journalists named in the FIR had either gone underground or fled to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when the FIA teams carried out raids to arrest them at their identified locations. CCPO reports 55 arrests in Lahore.
He stated that the FIA was attempting to obtain information regarding their rapidly changing new locations.
In response to a complaint filed by Punjab College for Women (Gulberg) Principal Sadia Yousuf, the cyber crime wing of the FIA (Lahore) conducted an investigation that led to the filing of the FIR. He stated that the FIA was also making use of all other options in order to obtain red warrants for suspects who were using social media accounts from other countries.
The official stated, “We are also going to write to Facebook and Instagram to initiate further action against the account-holders involved in spreading false propaganda.”
Principal Sadia Yousuf, on the other hand, claimed in the FIR that the “dirty” social media campaigns exacerbated protests. An uninformed and violent mob attacked our campus in Gulberg following the instigation on social media,” the FIR states.
She claimed that some students were disqualified from the Gulberg Campus by the vice principal for making videos of other students and faculty members without their consent during college hours.
The principal stated, “Soon a violent mob started attacking our staff and severely damaging the building,” adding that this protest spread to other province-wide cities as a result of a social media campaign.
Technical reports from the cyber crime wing, according to the FIA, identified the social media accounts of 38 senior journalists, lawyers, and TikTokers who were found to have shared the news of the alleged fake propaganda against the Punjab Group of Colleges, encouraging the general public to raid government and private infrastructure.
According to the FIR, “these users/profiles have been found involved in propagating/disseminating false propaganda to incite the general public to get involved in violence and to defame the complainant’s institute.”
According to the FIR, “Such violence-inducing content/posts made intentionally and publicly by the aforementioned social media accounts may cause or is likely to cause fear and alarm in the public or in any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquility or incite or like to incite any class or community to commit any offence against any other class or community on the ground of spreading anarchy, division in the social fabric, and hatred between
The press conference was attended by several female students alongside Principal Saadia Yousaf. One of the students involved in the controversy expressed regret for her contribution to the fabrication of the story.
She claimed that she shared a video within a student social media group that she had hurriedly created using unverified information. My classmates encouraged me to make a video about it because everyone in our group was sharing posts, she said. I created a vlog and uploaded it without conducting adequate research. I sincerely apologise for my actions and for contributing to the spread of false information. I have chosen to be here today to accept responsibility for my error.
According to the FIA, the dissemination of such false information caused violent mobs to destroy government and private infrastructure.
Separately, Bilal Siquque Kamyana, a CCPO in Lahore’s capital city, stated that the police had detained 55 suspects over the past two days for staging violent protests.
The CCPO gave a press conference while being flanked by the DIG of Lahore Operations. In it, they said that protesters attacked police with patrol bombs and burned seven police motorcycles.
He stated, “I myself examined CCTV recording for 12 hours when it was claimed that the incident had occurred on Oct. 2,” and added that there was no evidence of rape.
The government has evidence that the Insaf Students Federation of the PTI incited and provoked students to carry out violent protests, according to Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari, who is to blame. She said in a statement on Thursday that the PTI had, “under a planned scheme, tarnished the dignity of the student and her family.”
She claimed that official PTI pages had caused students to become agitated. Students were continuously provoked by former ISF officials.” She stated that videos were accessible to support the official position.
She stated that the situation was normal in all Punjabi cities, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Gujranwala. She stated that nobody would be permitted to disturb the peace in Punjab, and that the police were carrying out their duties to preserve order.
