KARACHl: A court on Saturday allowed the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) to keep the custody of nine suspects arrested during a raid on a call centre in connection with the credit card data theft case for further questioning till Nov 10.
The judicial magistrate (East) also reserved his order on the bail applications of detained suspects, including the owner of the call centre for the next hearing.
On Nov 4, the NCCIA claimed to have arrested 273 suspects including women and juveniles during a raid on an ‘illegal’ call centre on Sharea Faisal in connection with an ongoing enquiry into an alleged international financial fraud network.
However, the magistrate has so far granted bail to 264 suspects, including 98 women and 58 underage boys for being juvenile suspects.
After the end of their first physical remand, the investigating officer of the case produced nine suspects before the magistrate and sought 10-day extension in their remand for further questioning and investigation.
The counsel for the suspects opposed further physical remand and also filed post-arrest bail applications and argued that recoveries have already been made and their custody was no more required.
However, the NCCIA opposed the bail applications and contended that the applicants were further required for investigation as well as arrest of their absconding accomplices.
After hearing both sides, the magistrate granted three-day extension in physical remand of suspects and directed the IO to produce them again on Nov 10 along with a progress report. The court also reserved its order on bail applications till next hearing.
A case was registered against the suspects under Sections 3 (unauthorised access to information system or data), 4 (unauthorised copying or transmission of data), 13 (electronic forgery), 14 (electronic fraud), 16 (unauthorised use of identity information) and 26 (spoofing) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, read with Sections 109 (abetment) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.By Ishaq Tanoli