Daily Times

KARACHI: Several prominent online news portals and websites have reportedly come under the radar of the Federal Investigation Agency’s Cyber Crime Cell after a FIR was lodged with the agency in which it was stated the son of Maryam Nawaz had got engaged with the daughter of a prominent personality and he (Maryam’s son) would be appointed United States ambassador as a favour.

The case has been registered with Cyber Crime Circle (FIA) Lahore in which over a dozen web pages of newspapers and TV channels have been nominated from across the country, including Daily Basharat, Zem TV and Capital TV from Karachi.

A reliable source from FIA Headquarters told Daily Times that officials from FIR Lahore have prepared their initial report and it has been sent to other zones, including Karachi, Peshawar, Islamabad and Quetta for further investigation. “Officials of respective zones of FIA have initiated investigation to collect information of the news portals, websites of newspapers and channels fall in their jurisdictions,” a high level official added in this regard.

At first stage the editors and other relevant officials of these news portals and websites are being called thorough the call notices to appear before the investigation officers for written statements while in next stage zonal officials will sent their findings in investigation reports to FIA Lahore Zone and the further proceedings would be initiated on the directions of high ups.

“It would be determined if the arrests of such responsible persons are inevitable then they will be detained to send them to Lahore from Karachi and other cities for further prosecution” official further said.

It is pertinent to mention that in the month of August 2017 the news about engagement of Maryam Nawaz’s son with the Daughter of Talat Hussain, an anchor person was circulated by some news portals that went viral and at the time Talat Hussain clearly rejected the news and termed and false.

According to the source the case has been registered under the news Cyber Crime Act and officials of FIA have put this case on the priority to solve it as influential personalities taking personal entrust for finalizing the investigation and FIA officials are feeling the heat of that pressure.

After the implementation of the new Anti Cyber Crime laws this is a big case of its own nature and officials are taking it as the test case to establish a certain criteria for any possible such cases in future relating to the stream line media and social media scandals.

Published in Daily Times, December 28^th 2017.