A Lahore district court on Thursday granted a four-day extension to the physical remand of a man accused of playing a significant role in inciting recent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant riots in the UK through disinformation.
The suspect was first apprehended by Lahore police before being handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) cybercrime wing. The FIA presented the suspect to a magistrate, requesting an extension of his physical remand to continue their investigation.
On Wednesday, a judicial magistrate had granted the FIA one day of physical custody of Farhan Asif, who is accused of uploading a misleading news article on the Channel3Now website.
The investigating officer informed the court that a case had been filed against the suspect under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) 2016.
During today’s proceedings, the judicial magistrate agreed to extend the suspect’s remand by an additional four days and ordered that he be brought back before the court at the end of this period.
The FIA’s lawyer argued that further evidence needed to be extracted from the suspect and that a thorough investigation of his posts on X was still pending. The lawyer requested the extension from Judge Imran Abid, who subsequently approved it.
These developments come more than a week after widespread riots erupted in the UK following the tragic stabbing of three young girls in Southport. Law enforcement agencies began investigating claims that the disinformation, which fueled the unrest, originated from a website with connections to Pakistan.
Reports broadcast by a private news outlet in the UK identified Channel3Now, a little-known platform, as the source of the false claim that the British-born 17-year-old suspect was a Muslim immigrant who had arrived in the UK by boat.
UK broadcaster ITV News reported that the originator of this false story was a Pakistani national.
