From Abid Usman
LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) cybercrime wing on Wednesday has booked a Lahore man — linked to the recent violent anti-immigrant riots across the United Kingdom — on “technical assistance of cybercrime” charges.
The man, who has been identified as Farhan Asif, has been accused of spreading misinformation about the identity of the alleged perpetrator of the knife attack that killed three minor girls on July 29, 2024, in the UK.
The stabbing then led to widespread far-right riots which saw numerous mosques, asylum centres and immigrant homes being attacked in several regions of Britain, resulting in thousands of arrests. Asif was arrested on Tuesday night in Lahore’s DHA area and was handed over to the FIA cybercrime wing for interrogation.
The case against Asif was filed under Section 9 and 10A of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, in the complaint of “technical assistant of cybercrime”.
The FIR stated that Asif, who works for a news platform based in Pakistan, confessed to the crime which included sharing photos of the stabbing and an article about the incident on X.
“The article shared by Asif falsely claimed that a 17-year-old Muslim boy named Ali Al-Shakti, who migrated to the UK by boat in 2023, was responsible for the stabbing,” the FIR stated.
Additionally, the FIR revealed that the accused had admitted to giving false information to a foreign channel and, during the investigation, he also attempted to blame others.
During the investigation, which was led by the investigating agency’s Additional Director Cybercrime Chaudhry Sarfaraz, it was confirmed that the X account belonged to Asif.
Two laptops along with a mobile phone were also recovered from the accused as part of the investigation, as per the FIR.
The FIA sources further said that Farhan had confessed to interrogators that he once published a story on his news website without knowing that the post would go viral.
