LAHORE: The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) registered a case against PML-N MPA Saqib Chadhar on charges of harassing TV actor Momina Iqbal.
Anticipating his arrest, the lawmaker secured interim pre-arrest bail from a Lahore court on Friday.
According to the FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawn, Momina alleged that Chadhar, his wife and their ‘known and unknown associates have waged a sustained campaign of cyber harassment, stalking, criminal intimidation, blackmail, defamation, unlawful surveillance, and threats against her and her family’.
She also alleged that after rejecting Chadhar’s marriage proposal upon discovering his marriage, he ‘retaliated with repeated threats, attempts to access her private data, sending violent content, and blackmailing via her private videos’.The accused (Chadhar) allegedly defamed her socially and professionally, sabotaged her 2023 marriage proposal through false information, and recently intensified threats to leak private material, harm her and her fiance, and disrupt her upcoming marriage, causing severe emotional, reputational and professional harm, the FIR stated.
The report said that the preliminary technical and forensic analysis of Iqbal’s and Chadhar’s mobile phones and other devices was carried out that provided evidence on the basis of which a case was registered against him.
The NCCIA registered a case against Chadhar on Ms Iqbal’s complaint under Section 3 (unauthorised access to information system or data), Section 4 (unauthorised copying or transmission of data), Section 21 (offences against modesty of a natural person and minor) and Section 24 (cyber stalking) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca), read with Section 506 (punishment for criminalintimidation), Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender), Section 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and Section 109 (punishment for abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) of PPC.
The matter garnered attention after Iqbal’s social media appeal went viral and drew the attention of senior PML-N leadership, especially Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz.
Subsequently, the PML-N’s ‘top leadership directed the NCCIA to immediately entertain the actor’s complaint and initiate action against the ruling party MPA if the allegations are proven’, a source had told Dawn.
The source added that the CM’s Office also wanted to clear its name following Iqbal’s allegations against it.
The NCCIA had summoned Ms Iqbal and Mr Chadhar on May 21.The agency’s Punjab head Muhammad Ali Waseem said the two were summoned after the NCCIA received Ms Iqbal’s complaint.A day after they recorded their statements, the actor filed an application with Lahore’s Chuhng Police for registration of an FIR against Chadhar.
In her application, she alleged that the PML-N MPA had been making threatening calls to harass her and her fiance. She claimed that the lawmaker turned abusive when she refused his marriage proposal, after it transpired that he was already married to two women.
Subsequently, Chadhar began blackmailing her, she alleged, also mentioning WhatsApp messages and video calls from the suspect. She further alleged that the MPA also sent the same threatening messages to her sister’s mobile phone.
Amid all this commotion, allegations and case, Momina Iqbal has contracted marriage with Hamza Habib a couple of days back.