RAWALPINDI (Kashmir English): A local court in Rawalpindi on Friday sent the Islamic cleric and YouTuber, Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza, on seven days of physical remand in a blasphemy case.
Rawalpindi District Court approved the remand request and handed over the custody to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for seven more days.
Senior Civil Judge Waqar Hussain Gondal directed the agency to present Engineer Mirza again on September 19. Following the order, the FIA took him into custody for further interrogation.
Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza was booked under alleged blasphemy charges a day after he was arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) ordinance from Jhelum last month.
He was later handed over to the FIA after police lodged the first information report (FIR) at City Police Station Jhelum on August 26.
The police stated that the case includes Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which deals with blasphemy-related offenses, and provisions of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016.
The FIR stated that Mirza used blasphemous remarks in a video that has recently gone viral on social media. “Mirza has severely hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims by making blasphemous remarks”, the FIR read.
Mirza is a well-known online figure with over three million subscribers on YouTube. He also heads the Qur’an-o-Sunnat Research Academy in Jhelum, which has now been sealed by local authorities.
