Pakistan: Man sentenced to 12 years in jail for harassing ex-wife online

KARACHI: A man has been sentenced by a court in Karachi to 12 years imprisonment for harassing his former wife online.

In a landmark judgement, which supports the recent drive against online crimes by law enforcement and security agencies, Arshad Hadi was found guilty of creating a fake account on Facebook and posting his former wife's "indecent pictures and videos" in 2016.

He was also fined Rs 3 million.

District and sessions' judge (East) Khalid Hussain Shahani announced the verdict, after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

According to details, the woman's father had lodged a complaint against Hadi with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Cyber Crime Wing after he kept on harassing her even when she took divorce from him.

The woman had sought divorce and dissolution of marriage after complaining of his "sub-human inimical activities".

The public prosecutor added that the accused had taken some indecent pictures and videos of his former wife under threat of assault and murder with ulterior motives to blackmail her when they lived in Sharjah in the UAE.

The prosecutor said Hadi had started harassing the woman online since 2016 when he came to know that she was getting remarried.

"He also sent her indecent videos to the victim's father and sister from a fake ID on Facebook when he came to know that she was re-marrying," he said.

He said the accused had admitted that the Facebook ID was in his use through which he was sending "vulgar and illicit messages".

The prosecutor said that the investigators seized a laptop, a mobile phone, a tablet, and an internet device and successfully recovered the data from these devices.