A case has been registered at the Berot Police Station in the Hub district of Balochistan under the PECA (Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act) against journalist Farhan Mallick, journalist Usama Altaf, AABAD Chairman Hasan Bakhshi, retired SSP Rao Anwar, and others, on the complaint of the manager representing Balochistan’s provincial minister, Ali Hasan Brohi.
The FIR has been filed by Ali Asghar Zehri, the attorney for provincial minister Ali Hasan Brohi, also known as Zehri.
“The accused have launched a media campaign against Ali Hasan Brohi,” states the FIR.
According to the FIR, the accused used the YouTube program “System” to run a media campaign against an elected representative, which is described as a serious crime.
Other accused individuals include Syed Mumtaz Alam, Syed Kazim Rizvi, Fareed Dallari, and others.
Meanwhile, Raftar said that it is being deliberately targeted for releasing a documentary on Karachi’s land mafia, a film supported by official documents that reveal how these networks operate in a systematic and organized way across the city.
The organization called the FIR, filed under PECA laws in Hub, “bogus and absurd,” dismissing it as an attempt to silence critical journalism.
It should be noted that journalist Farhan Mallick has been facing various legal troubles in recent months. Mallick, the founder of media agency Raftar and a former news director at Samaa TV, was arrested on March 20 in Karachi and booked under the PECA Act as well as the Pakistan Penal Code in a case related to alleged anti-state content on his YouTube channel.
In April, Mallick was granted bail in two cases pertaining to allegedly “anti-state” content and data theft through a call center.
