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YouTuber Saadur Rehman, popularly known as Ducky Bhai, was granted bail on Monday by the Lahore High Court in a case related to the promotion of illegal gambling applications. He has not been released from official custody yet.

Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhary awarded the YouTuber bail against a surety of Rs1 million. Rehman has been in custody since his August 17 arrest at the Lahore airport. He was arrested by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency’s (NCCIA) Lahore branch.

The case was registered by the state through the NCCIA Lahore at midnight on August 17 under sections 13 (Electronic Forgery), 14 (Electronic Fraud), 25 (Spamming) and 26 (Spoofing) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 read with sections 294 B (Offering prize in connection with trade) and 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducting delivery of property) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The case is related to an inquiry dated June 13 and registered on the “receipt of information from reliable source(s)” that some YouTubers and social media influencers were promoting gambling and betting applications to the general public via their social media accounts for their own monetary benefits.

The FIR claimed that the public invested their hard earned money in these applications due to this and suffered financial losses. It accused Rehman of promoting different gambling and betting applications, including Binomo, 1xBet, Bet 365, B9 Game etc through his Youtube channel.

A total of 27 video links from his account that purportedly promoted these applications were included in the FIR, several of which are no longer available to view.

The YouTuber had applied for bail in the district and sessions court and before a judicial magistrate, but his applications were rejected, prompting him to approach the high court. Earlier this month, the court issued notices to the NCCIA to submit arguments on the Rehman’s application. He had argued that he had not been served any notice from the agency prior to his arrest.

At the end of October, nine NCCIA officers were booked for allegedly misusing their authority, extorting money from Rehman and taking bribes.