ISLAMABAD: The Fed­eral Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday took four days’ physical remand of Masoodur Rehman Abbasi, an office-bearer of the PPP’s Karachi chapter, for making derogatory remarks against Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed.

The FIA produced Mr Abbasi before senior civil judge Amir Aziz Khan and requested for a 10-day physical remand of the suspect.

Judge Khan, however, handed over his custody to the FIA till July 4.

Mr Abbasi was arrested by the FIA on Wednesday night.

The Supreme Court had taken notice of Masoodur Rehman’s derogatory re­­marks against the CJP.

Mr Abbasi admitted to the media after a Supreme Court hearing that he had committed a mistake and that he respected the judiciary.

The FIA also submitted an interim report to the Supreme Court.

The FIA said that the audio and video clip showing Mr Abbasi making indecent and disrespectful remarks about judiciary was genuine and unedited.

The video was still in circulation on social media websites.

The report said that the FIA had requested the digital forensic lab of its cybercrime wing to conduct a forensic analysis of the video clip to verify its authenticity.

The laboratory replied that the speech was available on different social media websites.

The video’s duration was two minutes and 15 seconds. It was first uploaded on Facebook and later posted by different people on other sites, including YouTube.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2021