Journalist Waheed Murad was produced before an Islamabad court by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday and was subsequently remanded in its two-day physical custody under the country’s cybercrime laws for posting “intimidating content” online.
His family had earlier filed a petition before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) for his recovery, saying that he was “forcibly disappeared by unknown” individuals from his house in the federal capital. The petition, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, was filed by Murad’s mother-in-law Abida Nawaz through lawyers Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha.
Abida claimed the journalist was “forcibly disappeared from his home in Sector G-8, Islamabad at around 2:05am by unknown officials presumably belonging to intelligence agencies, and accompanied by persons in black uniforms and two police double cabin vehicles”.
She described herself as an “eyewitness to the enforced disappearance [of Murad], and was also herself manhandled by the abductors who also took away her phone”.
The state, the defence ministry, the Islamabad police chief and the Karachi Company police’s station house officer were listed as respondents in the case.
The petition urged the IHC to direct the respondents to “immediately trace and produce” Murad before the court.
It pleaded that the court also order the respondents to “identify and investigate those responsible, directly or indirectly, for abducting and illegally detaining” the journalist, as well as to disclose information on any cases filed against him.
The petition also requested that the authorities provide the counsel and family access to Murad. It further urged the IHC to direct the respondents to disclose any charges against the journalist and where he was being kept.
The petition highlighted that Murad had raised his voice about the recent alleged enforced disappearance of US-based journalist Ahmad Noorani’s two brothers.
“The pattern of his abduction was the same as in the past,” Mazari told AFP. “The abductors, their modus operandi, and the way they stormed the house in the dead of night make it clear who they are.”
It later emerged that a first information report (FIR) was filed against the journalist by the FIA’s Cyber Crime Reporting Centre under Sections 9 (glorification of an offence), 10 (cyber-terrorism), 20 (malicious code) and 26A (punishment for false and fake information) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca), 2016.
It said Murad was “found sharing highly intimidating content” on social media platforms through which he had “knowingly disseminated/propagated, fake, false, misleading and misinterpreted information leading to hatred against the government functionaries”.
The FIR quoted one of his recent social media posts regarding the issues in Balochistan. It also said that he had shared a FactFocus report by journalist Ahmad Noorani, “in which the pictures of the family members of the chief of army staff were shared publicly along with highly intimidating remarks, violating their privacy”.
