KARACHI: A district court has sentenced a professor to eight years in prison and imposed a fine of over Rs1 million for harassing a female teacher on the internet.

Dr Farhan Kamrani, the then assistant professor at the psychology department of the University of Karachi, was found guilty of creating a fake account on Facebook in the name of a female lecturer and posting her edited pictures with indecent material on the page of a private university in October 2016.

The judgement was pronounced by district and sessions’ judge (East), Khalid Hussain Shahani.

The judge noted that the prosecution successfully proved the charges against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt.

The court awarded the convict three-year-imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs1m on him for committing an offence punishable under Section 21 (offences against modesty of a natural person and minor) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016.

The court also awarded him three-year-imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs50,000 on him for the offence punishable under Section 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

The court further handed down two-year-imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs50,000 on him for an offence punishable under Section 500 (punishment for defamation) of the PPC.

On default, the convict would undergo a collective additional imprisonment of eight months.

The convict, who was present in the court on bail, was arrested and sent to prison to serve out his sentences.

However, the court extended him the benefit of Section 382-B (period of detention to be considered while awarding sentence of imprisonment) of the criminal procedure code (CrPC) to him.

According to the prosecution, a female teacher lodged a complaint with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) alleging that somebody had posted/shared a link on the page of a private university containing pornographic pictures created by mixing her pictures and also used abusive language.

The investigators sent a request to the Facebook authorities requesting them to share details of the fake ID created in the name of the complainant, the prosecution said, adding that the management of the social networking website responded with required details.

The prosecution further mentioned that the accused was traced and arrested from his house, adding that during interrogation he had admitted to have created a fake Facebook ID in the name of the complainant, posting her pictures and making vulgar comments.

Special public prosecutor Zakir Hussain contended that a broadband modem, a computer and a mobile phone of the accused were seized and analysed for forensic examination and the evidence was successfully recovered from these devices.

He further contended that the evidence fully corroborated the allegations of the complainant and asked the court to punish the accused according to the law.

However, the accused denied these allegations in his statement, recorded before the court under Section 342 of the CrPC, and claimed innocence.

His defence counsel Ahsanullah Khan claimed that there were many loopholes in the case of the prosecution, which created doubts, as the investigating officer had not produced the computer allegedly recovered from the possession of his client and sent for forensic analysis.

He added that no indecent pictures of the complainant were shown, as alleged by her, therefore, the case did not fall within the ambit of Section 21 of the PECA, 2016.

He added that the IO failed to produce any information sought from the Facebook management and a private internet provider, while his extrajudicial confession before the police had no legal value.

Thus, he asked the court to acquit him of the alleged false allegations.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2021