Court extends Lahore man’s physical remand by 4 days in UK disinformation case

A district court on Thursday extended the physical remand of a Lahore resident by four more days for his alleged role in fuelling the recent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant riots in the UK through disinformation.

The suspect was initially taken into custody by Lahore police and later handed over to the FIA cybercrime wing which presented the suspect before a magistrate and sought his physical remand for investigation.

On Wednesday, a judicial magistrate allowed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) one-day physical custody of Farhan Asif, who was suspected of uploading a misleading news article on the website of Channel3Now.

The investigating officer had told the court that a case was registered against the suspect under the Prevention of Electronic Crime Act (Peca) 2016.

Today, while hearing the case, the judicial magistrate extended the remand of the suspect by four more days and ordered for him to be produced again after the stipulated time.

The agency’s lawyer argued that evidence from the suspect needed to be recovered and an investigation into his posts on X was to be carried out.

The lawyer asked Judge Imran Abid for an extension which was subsequently granted by the court.

More than a week after the kingdom witnessed widespread riots in the aftermath of the fatal stabbing of three young girls in Southport, law enforcement agencies began probing claims that the disinformation originated from a website with a footprint in Pakistan.

Reports aired by UK media identified little-known platform Channel3Now as the source of the disinformation that claimed the British-born 17-year-old suspect was a Muslim immigrant who had arrived in the UK on a boat.

However, UK broadcaster ITV News asserted that a Pakistani individual was the originator of the false news story.