IHC grants bail to blasphemy accused

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has granted bail to a person arrested in a blasphemy case in 2023, in view of the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency's (NCCIA) failure to conclude the investigation despite passage of two years.

An IHC bench comprising Justice Babar Sattar on Tuesday heard the bail application of Asimullah, filed through his lawyer Asif Ali Tamboli. The counsel argued that the accused had been in custody since Oct 30, 2023, but the investigation remained incomplete.

Justice Sattar inquired why the investigation had not been concluded despite two years of detention.

Officials of the NCCIA told the court that Asimullah had been added to a WhatsApp group from which objectionable content was shared, and based on tracing the SIM, he was arrested in 2023. Upon the court's inquiry about the ownership of the SIM, the NCCIA officials admitted that they could not determine in whose name the SIM was registered.