Amid reports circulating on social media about Islamabad police conducting random checks of people’s mobile phones to trace PTI supporters, party leader and senior lawyer Shoaib Shaheen has claimed the same, terming it an “extremely dangerous act”.

The development comes amid Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur alleging police of discrimination and profiling of Pakhtuns, as he raised the issue with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a letter yesterday.

As of Nov 28, over 1,400 suspects had been arrested by the Islamabad and Rawalpindi police in a crackdown on PTI protesters who had gathered in the federal capital last week before they and the party leadership hastily retreated in the early hours of Nov 27.

During the three days of protests, at least four security personnel lost their lives, including a policeman and three Rangers officials who perished in a vehicular accident. On the other hand, the PTI has claimed 12 of its supporters died due to alleged shooting by personnel, which the government has repeatedly denied.

Speaking to reporters outside the Islamabad Anti-Terrorism Court on Wednesday, Shaheen claimed, “They (police) just look at the CNICs and pick up anyone who had his made in KP.

“Secondly, they check the mobile phones of people, regardless of whichever ethnicity they belong to, and if they find any photo, video, group or message [related to] Imran Khan, they put them into jail,” he added.

Shaheen went on to say that family members visiting their relatives who had been detained were also taken into custody. “This is an extremely dangerous act and a conspiracy to break Pakistan. We strongly condemn this,” he asserted.

The lawyer went on to compare the actions to the East Pakistan situation: “After that, you saw how they used weapons and strength against their own people and what it resulted in. Today, we warn them to not commit such cowardly actions. Let this country proceed ahead.

“There’s already such intense hatred against you; do not add to that,” Shaheen said, adding that the “Constitution and the law has been trampled”. He stressed the need to “let the justice system function”, saying the government had targeted it by passing the 26th Amendment.

“They are arresting whoever they can get their hands on.”

Speaking to Dawn.com on the matter, an Islamabad police spokesperson refuted the allegations of checking ordinary citizens’ mobile phones: “The checkpoints have been set up in Islamabad as per routine. There is no veracity in reports of checking mobile phones at the checkpoints.”

However, at least two Dawn.com correspondents also reported witnessing such incidents, with one specifying the location of the checks as Islamabad Expressway, which connects the capital with Rawalpindi.

The correspondent reported that the police set up checkpoints on the Expressway, where after 10am, they stopped motorcycle riders to frisk them and check their mobile phones.

It is noteworthy that while detailing police action to arrest individuals allegedly involved in violence during the PTI protest, Attock District Police Officer (DPO) Dr Sardar Ghias Gul Khan said they conducted “verification at the time of arrest in four steps”.

The last step was checking mobile phones, which he said were “like an angel that records all your activities”, confirming that mobile phone checks were conducted to arrest people suspected of violence.

DPO Gul did not specify if the police had secured permission from a court to conduct such checks, a condition highlighted by various lawyers.

Addressing a press conference on December 2, he said: “At the time of arrests, we conducted verification in four steps, whose only aim was that no innocent or ordinary person was arrested. That verification included a simple interview first, they were asked where they were coming from and told to present their ID (identity) cards.

“After that was a physical check, followed by vehicle checks, during which things were recovered that were linking them. Lastly, their mobile phones [were checked]. You know that mobile phones are like the angel that records everything: where you are going, where you are coming from, who you message, what pictures you took.

“All those things are [self-]explanatory. If your phone gets unlocked, you can consider yourself like an open book,” DPO Gul added.

The official presented a picture of a mobile phone displaying what he said was a screengrab from a video found on a person’s mobile phone, in which he was holding pants of what seemed to be the Punjab Police’s uniform.

“He was arrested from the scene and he was heavily armed,” the DPO said, assailing people ridiculing policemen who put their lives at risk to perform their duties.

Amid the situation, there have been allegations that the Islamabad administration and authorities have been allegedly targeting Pakhtuns and people from KP in the crackdown. However, the Islamabad police rubbished the allegations in a post on X yesterday, terming them “negative propaganda”.

Azhar Leghari, a former member of the PTI’s Central Media Department, also claimed Pakhtuns were being profiled based on their ethnicity and their mobile phones were being checked.

“There is a dangerous profiling being conducted by police in Islamabad and Punjab. Pashtuns are being arrested just because they are Pashtuns! Their mobile phones are being checked they are being stopped at police chowkis and random places identified with their CNICs and looks,” he said on X yesterday.

Lawyers say action violation of rights, targeting dissent

Several law experts told Dawn.com that searching citizens’ mobile phones in such a manner not only violated one’s rights guaranteed by the Constitution but also went against certain laws, such as the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, as the specified procedures were seemingly not followed.

Nighat Dad, a rights activist part of the AI advisory board of the United Nations chief, said such an action was a violation of the Constitution as well as the Peca law. She noted that it violated Article 14 (inviolability of dignity of man, etc) of the Constitution, which protected the right to privacy.

“As a fundamental constitutional right, the right to privacy is meant to take precedence over any other inconsistent provisions of domestic law,” Dad explained.

The lawyer went on to state that checking mobile phones also went against Article 8 (laws inconsistent with or in derogation of fundamental rights to be void) of the Constitution.

Article 8, Dad said, provided that “any law, or any custom or usage having the force of law, in so far as it is inconsistent with the rights conferred under the Constitution, shall, to the extent of such inconsistency, be void”.

According to the rights activist, the action was also a violation of Peca — a law that states the procedures and punishments for crimes related to electronic media.

“The law clearly states that acquiring data stored in an information system or seizure of any articles requires an intimation to the concerned court or obtaining a warrant within 24 hours,” Dad highlighted.

“Section 31 of Peca allows a law enforcement officer to require a person to hand over data without producing any court warrant if it is believed that it is ‘reasonably required’ for a criminal investigation,” she specified.

“This can be done at the discretion of the officer and needs only be brought to the notice of a court within 24 hours after the acquisition of the data.

Lawyer Ayman Zafar also said such reported checks violated the Constitution’s Article 14. “Such searches, if conducted without due process, violate this right and the safeguards against arbitrary actions by law enforcement,” she stated.

Zafar pointed out that there were certain requirements and procedures specified in laws that allow such action: “Legally, the police may search digital devices only if explicitly authorised by law, such as under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, or with a court-issued warrant under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

“Even in such cases, these actions must be specific, proportional, and supported by credible evidence of criminal activity — not mere fishing expeditions targeting dissent,” the lawyer emphasised.

She added: “If these searches are being conducted without clear legal authorisation or oversight, they are not only unconstitutional but also a blatant misuse of state power, setting a dangerous precedent for targeting dissent and undermining democratic norms and the rule of law.

“There is no legal framework that permits the government to profile citizens based on political leanings,” Zafar stated. She noted that “every citizen has the right to hold a political affiliation or opinion” — a right also guaranteed by Article 17 (freedom of association) of the Constitution.

“The state should protect its citizens, not turn them into targets for holding opinions. It’s time to ask: who guards the guardians of our rights?”

Advocate Abdul Moiz Jaferii, also a member of the recently formed Awaam Pakistan party, called the police officials’ actions “state-sponsored thuggery”.

“Police force modelled on a colonial-era design to control people rather than to protect them is running riot in the name of carrying out orders,” he told Dawn.com.

“These directions, if given, are absolutely illegal. If absent and if this is an innovation by the police themselves, even more so,” Jaferii said.

Terming the searches “an offence to the fundamental right to privacy”, like other lawyers, he said they had no allowance in any law or police procedure code without proper cause shown to a judicial officer.

He added: “But this has never been about the law. An oppressive regime has allowed its enforcers to use tools of coercion which are being deployed against the citizenry.”

Speaking on the matter, Barrister Rida Hosain said the police “do not have the authority to search mobile phones of citizens in the absence of a court order authorising the same”.

“Any unilateral action by the police, in the absence of a judicial warrant, is blatantly unlawful,” she asserted.

Hosain recalled a Lahore High Court order which observed that “phone data can ‘only be obtained with the permission of the concerned court with strict regard to privacy rights guaranteed under the Constitution’”.

Hosain was referring to a July 2023 order, wherein a bench comprising Justice Ali Baqar Najafi and Justice Muhammad Amjad Rafiq ruled that spying on or extracting data from the personal mobile phone of an individual or a suspect without a court’s permission was unconstitutional and illegal.

“The reported conduct of the Islamabad Police appears to be targeting the supporters of a political party, and of a certain ethnicity. These actions have nothing to do with the law and are reflective of a regrettable pattern to intimidate, degrade, and harass citizens,” she noted.

Commenting on a post circulating on X that echoed the checking claims, renowned rights activist Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir said on Tuesday: “[Islamabad police cannot demand your phones at checkposts, let alone open the same and go through them. They require a warrant for that.

“If anyone stops you at a checkpoint and demands your phone, refuse to give it. What Islamabad Police is doing is completely illegal,” she advised citizens.

Additional reporting by Shakeel Qarar