Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency announced the arrest of seven men in three days across Punjab province in cases involving the online harassment and blackmail of women.
The agency said three men were detained on 28 July 2026 in operations in Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan, and a further four on 30 July in the same three cities.
In the 28 July arrests, the agency named one man in Lahore, who it said had created a TikTok account to post a woman’s photographs while impersonating a government official in order to intimidate and blackmail her. It named another man in Faisalabad, accused of blackmailing a complainant’s sister through social media and WhatsApp, and a third man in Multan, accused of sharing images of a complainant and harassing her and her family.
None of the men has entered a plea. The accounts of what they are alleged to have done come from the agency. Neither they nor their legal representatives were immediately available for comment.
The pace of arrests is not unusual. The agency has announced detentions in similar cases repeatedly through July. What is not available is any figure for what happens afterwards. Pakistan has published no data on how many cyber-harassment arrests result in charges, how many charges reach trial, or how many trials end in conviction.
Reporting on the same day pointed to the other end of the problem. JournalismPakistan’s Global Media Brief of 31 July found women journalists in the country continuing to face online abuse and AI-enabled disinformation alongside workplace discrimination and security threats.