Pakistan man charged with cybercrime linked to riots in Britain

Pakistan man charged with cybercrime linked to riots in Britain

By Mubasher Bukhari

Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has charged a local man with cybercrime offences for spreading fake online information which fuelled riots in Britain, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The riots began after false information circulated online wrongly blaming an Islamist migrant for the killing of three young girls in a knife attack in the northern English town of Southport in late July.

Farhan Asif, who ran a web publication, was arrested in eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, a statement from the FIA said.

It said Asif posted an article on his X social media account which said that the attacker was a Muslim immigrant, and also shared pictures of the killings.

Having picked up the fake content from another X account, he was found to be involved in "disseminating the information using his own Twitter (X) account Channel3NOwnews with the intent to glorify the incident about the arrest of a Muslim Asylum seeker by police in the stabbing incident in Southport, England and created a sense of fear, panic, insecurity," the FIA said.

The FIA said that it had been established that the account that spread the fake news belonged to Asif, who has also admitted to having passed on the fake information to a foreign publication as well.

Asif has yet to appoint a lawyer and he and his family were not immediately reachable for comment, nor was the X account when Reuters tried to message it.

A court remanded the accused into the custody of the FIA for one day on Wednesday for further investigation, the statement said.