Lahore court orders FIA to register case against Babar Azam on harassment charges

Karachi: Pakistan captain Babar Azam’s problems in his personal life continue to grow as a sessions court in Lahore has ordered the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)’s Cyber Crime Circle to register a first information report (FIR) against him in a harassment case. The order from Judge Hamid Hussain came on Thursday after a hearing in Lahore on a petition filed by a woman, Hamza Mukhtar who claimed she had been getting threatening messages on her WhatsApp, threatening her with dire consequences after she filed a case against the Pakistan captain. At the hearing, the FIA officials informed the court that after Hamiza filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell and they started an inquiry they found one of the numbers used to send the threatening messages belonged to Babar Azam. [caption id=“attachment_9300571” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  File image of Pakistan’s Babar Azam, AP[/caption] Hamiza has alleged that she was constantly receiving “threatening messages” from different mobile numbers on WhatsApp and that unknown persons also used to “threaten and blackmail her that they have her objectionable pictures and videos and will upload (them) on social media in order to harm her repute in society and ruin her life.” She said she had approached the FIA to trace the unknown numbers and they found one of them was registered to Babar Azam and two others to two women, Maryam Ahmed and Salme BB who were served notices to join the FIA’s inquiry proceedings to record their version. The court was told that of the three, only Ahmed appeared in front of the agency and denied knowing the petitioner or sending her abusive messages. According to the report, Ahmed had stated that she would provide her mobile phone for technical analysis but she failed to do so. The FIA said Babar’s brother Faisal Azam appeared on behalf of the cricketer and requested the FIA to “wait for some time” to record Babar’s statement. However, Babar has not yet appeared for the inquiry, the FIA report said. In his order, the judge wrote that since a regular inquiry had already commenced on the petitioner’s complaint, the “respondent is ordered to proceed further with respect to registration of FIR against the culprits within the stipulated time after [completion] of legal formalities”. Earlier this year, the Lahore High Court (LHC) had suspended the order by a sessions court to the Naseerabad police in Lahore to register a case against Babar Azam on Mukhtar’s complaint. Hamiza has also filed harassment, sexual abuse and other cases against Babar in the court.