KARACHI: A district court has awarded 12 years in jail to a convict and imposed a fine of over Rs3 million for harassing his former wife on the internet.

Arshad Hadi was found guilty of creating a fake account on Facebook and sending indecent pictures and videos of his former wife to her family through social networking websites in Dubai in 2016.

District and sessions’ judge (East) Khalid Hussain Shahani pronounced his judgement reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge noted that the prosecution successfully proved its case against the accused.

The court awarded him five-year-imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs3m on him for committing an offence punishable under Section 21 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016.

The court also awarded him five-year-imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs50,000 for offence punishable under Section 419 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The court also handed him down two years in jail and imposed a fine of Rs25,000 for an offence punishable under Section 500 of the PPC.

On default, the convict would undergo a collective additional imprisonment for six months.

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

All sentences would run concurrently.

According to the prosecution, the complainant stated that his daughter was married with Arshad Hadi, but the marriage was dissolved on June 26, 2016 owning to his “sub-human inimical” activities.

It further mentioned that during the period of their marriage the accused had taken some indecent pictures and videos of his wife with ulterior motives to blackmail her.

The couple was living in Dubai, where the victim after obtaining khula from Sharjah’s Shariah Court from Hadi lodged a complaint against him.

According to the victim, Hadi, who was a teacher at her school in Karachi in 2013 when she was studying in grade-X and married already, contacted her through the social networking website Facebook.

She said the accused also visited her house along with his wife and children, when he proposed her for marriage that she accepted and he called her to Sharjah after marriage.

She said that during their stay in the Gulf state, she started a job at an advertising agency, when her husband lost his job and started physically torturing her to force her to get money from her family.

The victim said the accused also got transferred in his name a house, which was given to her by her family in Karachi.

She left Dubai for Karachi on March 9, 2016, where her ex-husband also reached and took her to his house in Malir Halt, where he forcibly recorded her indecent videos and sent the same to the victim’s father and sister from a fake ID on Facebook, when he came to know that she was remarrying.

Special public prosecutor Zakir Hussain contended that the FIA team traced and arrested the accused from his flat through information received from the management of Facebook.

His defence counsel argued that the alleged offence took place in Sharjah, which was beyond the jurisdiction of the court. The judge overruled.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2021