Probe finds PML-N MPA Saqib Chadhar guilty of harassing actor Momina Iqbal, NCCIA official tells Lahore court

LAHORE: A National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) official on Tuesday informed a sessions court that PML-N MPA Saqib Chadhar had been found guilty of harassing actor Momina Iqbal after investigation.

NCCIA Lahore Station House Officer (SHO) Najam Bajwa shared this as Additional District and Sessions Judge Nusrat Ali Siddiqui took up pre-arrest bail petitions of the MPA and his wife, who was also named in the first information report registered after Iqbal’s harassment allegations.

Chadhar and his wife appeared before the court upon the expiry of their previous pre-arrest interim bail.

During the hearing, SHO Najam Bajwa informed the court that the investigation against Chadhar had been completed and he had been found guilty of the allegations levelled by Iqbal.

He further told the court that Chadhar’s wife had surrendered her mobile phone to NCCIA two days ago and the device had been sent for forensic examination.

For his part, the counsel for Iqbal urged the court to dismiss the suspects’ bail pleas, arguing that their release on bail posed a threat to his client.

The judge adjourned the hearing after extending Chadhar and his wife’s bail till September 3, directing that both sides present their final arguments at the next hearing.

Chadhar and his wife had secured pre-arrest bail in the case on June 5, a day after NCCIA registered a case against them. Their bail has been extended multiple times since.

Case origins

The case against them garnered attention after a social media appeal by Iqbal went viral in May and drew the attention of senior PML-N leadership, especially Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. In her online post, tagged to the PML-N leadership, Iqbal alleged that she had been subjected to “online harassment, cyberbullying, and death threats for a long time”.

She claimed that both she and her family had suffered severe mental stress and trauma because of the alleged conduct of the MPA, whose identity she did not disclose publicly at the time.

“A member of the provincial assembly belonging to the PML-N has been threatening me for an extended period. I repeatedly reported the matter to the NCCIA and the Federal Investigation Agency, but no action was taken,” she stated.

Instead of ensuring justice, attempts were allegedly made to suppress the complaints, Iqbal claimed. “Even individuals associated with the office of the chief minister tried to discourage me and silence the issue rather than allowing a fair investigation.”

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.

Following these developments, the NCCIA summoned Iqbal and Chadhar on May 21. The agency’s Punjab head Muhammad Ali Waseem said the two were summoned after the NCCIA received Iqbal’s complaint.

A day after they recorded their statements, Iqbal filed an application with Lahore’s Chung Police for the registration of a first information report 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 in her application. She further alleged that the MPA also sent the same threatening messages to her sister’s mobile phone.

Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz also warned in a post on X that any attempt to exert political pressure, abuse influence, or exploit a woman by threatening to release “personal content” in the case involving Iqbal and Chadhar would be met with “firm and uncompromising action.”

On June 4, the NCCIA registered a case against Chadhar on Iqbal’s complaint under Sections 3 (unauthorised access to information system or data), 4 (unauthorised copying or transmission of data), 21 (offences against modesty of a natural person and minor) and 24 (cyber stalking) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, read with Sections 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 109 (punishment for abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) of the Pakistan Penal Code. ...