#MeToo: Leena Ghani files defamation suit against Ali Zafar claiming Rs500m compensation

KARACHI: Artist Leena Ghani has Wednesday moved the Sindh High Court against singer Ali Zafar claiming Rs500 million in compensation for running a smear campaign against her which she says caused a great deal of mental trauma, ARY News reported.

With this defamation suit against the singer, who is already engaged in a legal battle with Meesha Shafi who had claimed he subjected her to sexual harassment, the SHC has served a notice to him for January 25.

She tweeted earlier today, using #Metoo hashtag which is reminiscent of the campaign where women began to call out their alleged harassers and means of harassments, that after years of “personal and legal attacks by Mr. Zafar,” she has decided to stand up fight back.

After years of personal and legal attacks by Mr. Zafar, I have decided to stand up for myself and fight back.

They said go to the courts. So I did. #metoo #TimesUp pic.twitter.com/XSRyaMuTLB

— Leena (@Leena_Ghani) January 13, 2021

She added in a series of her tweets that she has moved the court “to stop Mr. Zafar and his army of trolls from harassing me further”.

The SHC served the notice to Ali Zafar via a sessions judge Lahore for the application which says that while the applicant was never a part of his and Shafi’s episode, he nevertheless ran a smear campaign against her on Twitter which ensued her mental trauma.

The tweets by Ali Zafar’s account on Dec 20 and followed with one on Dec 22, which claimed that Leena Ghani was behind sexual harassment claims by Meesha Shafi, were a pack of lies and were wrought in a bid to damage Ghani’s image and person, the plea reads.

It also requested a gag order against the singer as the applicant pleads the court to stop him from speaking about her at all.

The plea thus requests the SHC to impose a compensation fine of Rs500 million on the respondent for all the trauma she had to endure throughout.

Ghani ended her Twitter thread with an expression of gratitude for the women who supported her stance.

READ: Court issues notices to Meesha Shafi, others

A Lahore court on Wednesday issued notices to singer Meesha Shafi and seven others in a case filed against them for allegedly running a vilification campaign on social media against singer-actor Ali Zafar.

The court issued notices in the wake of submission of an interim challan by the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) cybercrime wing, in which Ms Shafi, Iffat Omar, Ali Gul Pir, Maham Javaid, Leena Ghani, Haseemus Zaman Khan, Fariha Ayub and Faizan Raza were declared “guilty” of running the smear drive against the complainant of the case, Ali Zafar.

They are all required to respond to the court notice by the next hearing slated for January 18.