A Pakistani court has sentenced a man to 12 years in prison and Rs3 million fine for harassing his former wife on social media.
The court found Arshad Hadi guilty of creating a fake account on Facebook and posting his ex-wife’s “indecent pictures and videos” in 2016.
East Karachi District and Sessions Judge Khalid Hussain Shahani announced the verdict, which had earlier been reserved, after evidence and final arguments from both sides were recorded.
According to the prosecution, the complainant stated that his daughter was married to Arshad Hadi, but their marriage was dissolved due to his “sub-human inimical activities”. He said the accused took indecent pictures and shot videos of his ex-wife using the threat of assault and murder with the motive to blackmail her.
The couple had been living in Dubai, where the victim had obtained divorce through Sharjah’s Shariah Court. Later, she lodged a harassment complaint against him, but it was resolved through a “compromise”.
The woman said in her statement that she left Dubai for Karachi on March 9, 2016. Her ex-husband also reached Karachi and took her to a house in Malir Halt, where he forcibly recorded her indecent videos and sent these to her father and sister from a fake ID on the Facebook, when he came to know that she was remarrying.
The woman informed the court that she was studying in grade 10 at a school in Karachi where the accused was working as teacher and it was at that time when they formed an acquaintance. Later she got married to someone else, but after some years, separated from her husband with whom she had three children.
She said that Hadi learnt about her divorce and contacted her through the social networking website Facebook. She said the accused visited her house with his wife and children, when he proposed her for marriage which she accepted and then went to live with him in Sharjah after marriage.
She said that during their stay in the Gulf state she started a job at an advertising agency when Hadi lost his job and started physically torturing her to force her to get money from her family in Pakistan to pay his loans running in excess of 120,000 Dirhams.
The woman said the accused also got transferred in his name a house given to her by her family in Karachi.
Special public prosecutor Zakir Hussain contended that the FIA team traced and arrested the accused at his apartment through information received from the management of Facebook. He said the accused had admitted that the Facebook ID was in his use through which he was sending vulgar and illicit messages.
He said that the investigators seized a laptop, a mobile phone, a tablet, and an internet device and recovered data from these devices.
During the investigation, the investigating officer recorded the statements of witnesses and obtained a report of the forensic analysis (USB containing 27 files) of the seized devices and filed a charge-sheet against him.
In his statement recorded under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the accused denied the allegations and claimed innocence.
The defence counsel argued that the alleged offence took place in Sharjah, which was beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the incumbent court, while his clients had already been tried in by a court in Sharjah, therefore registering a case against him in Pakistan amounts to double jeopardy as provided under Section 403 of the Criminal Procedure Code and Article 13 of the Constitution.
The judge overruled such an assertion, observing that any offence committed by any citizen of Pakistan at any place without and beyond the limits of Pakistan would be treated as if that same had been committed within the territory of Pakistan, as provided under Section 188 of the CrPC.
The judge noted that the prosecution had successfully proved its case against the accused beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt.
