Daily Times

A district and session court in Islamabad sent journalist Asad Toor on a five-day physical remand in a case related to the anti-judiciary campaign on social media.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) produced Toor before Magistrate Mohammad Shabbir and sought his remand. The court also allowed the journalist to meet his legal counsel for an hour. “I am a journalist and cannot give my mobile phone. I appeared before FIA twice, my lawyer said that he received the notice in hand on February 24,” said Toor during the hearing.

He added that they moved the high court against the call-up notice, and reached the FIA office with the high court’s order on February 26 to inquire about the FIR and the allegations levelled against him. Meanwhile, in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), Toor’s mother told the media that she was not aware for which crime her son had been arrested and added that she is filling a petition.

Replying to a journalist’s question, she said “Asad told me that a notice has come and he is leaving. The next day another notice was received. We did not know that Asad had been arrested. I still don’t understand my son’s crime behind his arrest”.

As per the FIR against Toor, the journalist allegedly ran a malicious campaign against the judiciary on social media platforms X and YouTube. It added that he has fueled anti-state activities through social media and he has been booked under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016.

It should be noted that a JIT was formed to probe the campaign against the government officials, after which the FIA issued a summon notice to Toor. Recently, On February 24, Toor and anchorperson Imran Riaz Khan were summoned by the FIA Cyber Wing on the same charges. Both YouTubers had been asked to bring the relevant records with them. In case of non-appearance, the notices said, it would be assumed that they had nothing to say in their defence.

However, anchorperson Imran who remained a critic of judges in recent times was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) in a corruption case last week.