The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) cyber-crime wing booked nine people, including singer Meesha Shafi for staging a smear campaign against fellow singer-actor, Ali Zafar.
In the FIR the 9 suspects are booked for a non-cognizable offense on the order of the FIA special court.
The FIA’s cyber-crime division Lahore registered an FIR on Monday under section 20 (1) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 and R/W 109-PPC against singer Meesha Shafi, host-actor Iffat Omar, make-up artist Leena Ghani, Maham Javaid, Fariha Ayub, Haseemuz Zaman Khan, Ali Gul Pir, bloggers Syed Faizan Rana and Humna Raza.
Under these sections, the culprits could face a jail term of three years for intentional and public transmission of fake/false information to harm the privacy or reputation of a natural person.
The FIR stated that the suspects were summoned multiple times to present their defense to the FIA’s cyber-crime wing, their failure to do so granted a cause of criminal proceedings against them.
Meesha Shafi accused Ali Zafar of sexual harassment in April 2018. Afterwards, both parties issued legal notices to each other. While, Zafar had also filed a defamation case against Shafi which is pending with a sessions court.
In November 2018, Zafar filed a complaint with FIA’s cyber-crime wing, alleging that many accounts on various social media platforms were posting defamatory content and threats against him. To back his allegations he provided details of some Facebook and Twitter accounts to the authority.
The actor alleged that Shafi was connected to the majority of the fake accounts which were created to stage a smear campaign against him a few weeks before Shafi’s allegation of sexual harassment against him.
“A Twitter account @nehasaigol1, which posted 3,000 defamatory tweets against me and my family only in one year, [was] created 50 days before Meesha’s allegations of sexual harassment,” the singer-turned-actor told the FIA.
In December 2019, Shafi did appear before the FIA with her team of lawyers but failed to produce any witness to support her allegation of sexual harassment against Zafar.
The next hearing in the defamation suit is scheduled on 3rd October, 2020. Zafar has asked the court in his suit to issue a decree against Shafi directing her to pay Rs 1 billion as damages to him after she failed to issue an apology and delete the tweet for her fake claims within 14 days of a legal notice served on her.
