Lahore, June 24 : Actor-singer Ali Zafar has filed a defamation suit in a district court here against singer Meesha Shafi, who accused him of sexual harassment two months ago on social media. The suit claims damages of Rs 1 billion.
Filed under the Defamation Ordinance 2002 on Saturday, Zafar has said in the notice that Shafi had caused "tremendous injury" to his "reputation, goodwill, livelihood" through "false, slanderous and defamatory" allegations, according to Geo News
The suit reads: "As the defamatory statements are patently false, it can only be concluded that this malicious campaign has been launched against the plaintiff as part of a motivated conspiracy to tarnish the plaintiff's good image through making false accusations.
"The defendant has associated herself with the global #MeToo movement, with one of the launchers of the #MeToo movement Rose McGowan labeling the defendant as 'a heroine for our times'."
In the breakdown of the Rs 1 billion damages, the notice read: "Be that as it may, that due to the defamatory campaign being spearheaded by the defendant, the plaintiff besides special damages in case of defamation further suffered the following damages: Mental torture Rs 2 crore, Loss of contacts Rs 8 crore, Loss of reputation/goodwill Rs 50 crore, Loss of business opportunities Rs 40 crore."
Earlier, Shafi had confirmed she had received a legal notice sent by Zafar's counsel, asking the singer-cum-actor to delete her tweet alleging harassment and issue an apology on Twitter, failing which he would file a Rs 1 billion defamation case against her.
It was in April that Shafi took to Twitter to publicly accuse Zafar of physically harassing her on "more than one occasion".
Ali had denied the allegations, saying he would take the matter through the courts of law.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
The first round of direct talks between the United States and Iran, held in Islamabad, has concluded, Al Jazeera reported citing sources close to the development.
According to the report, following the discussions, delegations from both sides agreed to exchange written documents, a move aimed at ensuring clarity and consensus on the understandings reached during the meeting.
Both the Iranian and US delegations arrived in Islamabad on Saturday, April 11, amid high security for the peace talks.
