Several officers of Pakistan’s newly formed National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) have gone missing under mysterious circumstances, raising serious concerns about internal security within the country’s top cybercrime body.
The NCCIA, established in May 2025 to prevent online crimes and investigate cyberattacks, now finds itself at the centre of an alarming pattern of disappearances involving its own personnel.
According to information obtained by DRM, at least six NCCIA officials have gone missing so far, including officers from Lahore, Gujranwala, and Islamabad. In Lahore, an additional director, a deputy director, and an assistant director reportedly disappeared last week. Similar cases have been reported from Gujranwala and Rawalpindi, where one assistant director from each city has allegedly been abducted.
The most recent incident occurred in Islamabad, where Muhammad Usman, the agency’s Deputy Director of Operations, was abducted on the evening of October 14. According to the FIR filed by his wife at Shams Colony Police Station, four unidentified men in a white Toyota Corolla intercepted and took her husband at gunpoint from the parking area of their apartment building in Zara Heights, H-13 sector. Usman has not been seen since.
The case has now reached the Islamabad High Court. During a hearing on Monday, Justice Muhammad Azam Khan gave police three days to locate the missing officer. The judge warned that if Muhammad Usman was not recovered, the NCCIA’s Central Director and the Inspector General of Islamabad Police would be required to appear before the court in person.
The petition was filed by Usman’s wife, Rozina Usman, but her lawyer, Raja Rizwan Abbasi, told the court that she, too, could no longer be reached. Abbasi said Rozina had called him earlier, claiming she was being pressured to withdraw her petition. “Since then, her phone has been switched off, and I’ve had no contact with her,” he said.
Abbasi also told the court that CCTV footage showed the abductors’ car had a fake license plate. Justice Azam Khan questioned how a vehicle with counterfeit registration could move freely in the capital, especially given the city’s network of security checkpoints and surveillance cameras.
The Islamabad Police sought a week’s extension to complete the investigation, but the court granted only three days. The Assistant Attorney General informed the bench that an FIR had already been registered and further investigation was underway.
NCCIA’s spokesperson and Director General have not yet issued any public statement or responded to media queries.
Legal experts say the growing number of disappearances within a state-run cybercrime agency is deeply troubling. It also raises the question of whether state investigators themselves are being abducted; it reflects a serious breakdown in security and governance in the countrty.
