On Friday, March 28th, 2025, the Islamabad Court granted bail to journalist Waheed Murad, who was arrested in a case registered under the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (PECA).
The journalist was arrested by the Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) on charges of glorifying offences and cyber terrorism earlier this week. Murad was presented in the court today after the completion of his two-day physical remand.
During the hearing, Judicial Magistrate Abbas Shah inquired about the material recovered by the FIA from Waheed Murad. Murad’s legal counsel, Imaan Mazari, argued that Murad had only quoted the words of a former lawmaker and leader of BNP, Akhtar Menga,l in his post. Another lawyer, Hadi Ali Chatha, further clarified that Murad’s first tweet was based on Mengal’s statement.
The court granted him bail against the surety bonds of 50,000 after hearing the arguments of the legal counsel. The amount was further lowered to Rs 20,000 on the request of Waheed Murad.
Earlier, a petition was filed by the mother-in-law of the journalist through lawyers Waheed Murad and Hadi Chatha, for his recovery. According to the wife of the journalist, masked men forcibly entered their house at 2 AM and forcibly took him away in a ‘daala’ and alleged him to be an Afghan.
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The petition filed by his family for his recovery named several high-ranking officials as respondents. The interior secretary, the defence secretary, the Islamabad inspector general of police, and the Station House Officer (SHO) of Karachi Company police station had been named as respondents.
The petition called for the immediate recovery of Waheed Murad and demanded legal action against those involved in his disappearance.
FIA had registered the case against him under the PECA. The sections included in the FIR were Section 9 (glorification of an offence), 10 (cyber terrorism), 20 (malicious code), and 26. The court had remanded him to the agency for two-day following his arrest.