Pakistani singer and actress Meesha Shafi has lawyered up after fellow celebrity Ali Zafar sent her a legal notice following her sexual assault allegations against him.
“I have appointed Barrister @pansota1 and @nighatdad as my legal counsels to look after all issues pertaining to my sexual harassment claim against Ali Zafar. Media is requested to contact them to get any update on the ongoing issue,” Shafi tweeted on Tuesday.
According to Zafar's notice, a case of defamation will be filed against Shafi if she failed to issue an apology to Zafar within two weeks.
Last week, Shafi had accused Zafar of sexually assaulting her on more than one occasion.
Zafar broke his silence on the matter with a tweet where he categorically denied all claims of harassment lodged against him.
Zafar, who is a popular name in Bollywood, said in his official statement: “He is the father of a young girl and a young boy, a husband to a wife and a son to a mother. I am a man that has stood up for myself, my family, mycolleagues and friends countless times in the face of slander defamation and general unkindness.”
“I intend to take this through the courts of law and to address this professionally and seriously rather than to lodge any allegations here,” he added.
Interestingly, Shafi is not the only celebrity to accuse Zafar of harassing her.
Pakistani journalist Maham Javaid recently revealed that Zafar had tried to misbehave with her cousin as well.
“So @itsmeeshashafi’s brave sharing of her experience reminded me of a story about @AliZafarsays from many many years ago, when Ali Zafar tried to kiss my cousin and pull my cousin into a restroom with him. Luckily my cousin’s friends were there to push Ali Zafar off,” she wrote.
Make-up artist Leena Ghani too took to social media to share her story, saying she felt him touching her inappropriately once while clicking a selfie with the singer.
“In the many years I have known Ali, he has on several occasions crossed boundaries of what is appropriate behaviour between friends,” she wrote. “I have chosen to ignore it out of respect for his family, but today I feel I must speak my truth in light of recent revelations. His behaviour displays a clear lack of respect for women. Inappropriate contact, groping, sexual comments should not fall in the grey area between humour and indecency… In such cases most women like myself run from such a situation and hope to God you never cross paths again. And when by some misfortune you do, you hide from him. Hoping his sleazy eyes and hands don’t find you again. His hands don’t make their way up a nd down your waist or hold you too tight while you desperately try to wiggle and run…” she wrote.
