Meesha Shafi, through her legal team, submitted a response to Ali Zafar’s defamation lawsuit Wednesday. Zafar filed the lawsuit after Shafi accused him of harassment on multiple occasions.
Meesha has denied all allegations of slander made by Zafar in his notice and has said that she will prove Zafar’s harassment with evidence and testimonies of several other women who have accused Ali of sexual misconduct.
Zafar’s legal team representative, on the other hand, commented that they are glad that Meesha’s team has respected the law and filed their response because this was their last chance.
Meesha had previously filed a case against the singer-turned-actor under the 2010 Punjab Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act. However, that was dismissed because an employee, employer relation could not be established.
Meesha had come forward with her allegations against Zafar in April and had said that she was sharing her story because she feels that speaking about such issues will break the culture of silence. She said that she had thought of Ali as a close friend but her experiences with him had left her traumatised.
Zafar had denied Shafi’s claims and said that he intended to take up the matter in the courts of law to address this “professionally and seriously.”
The next hearing of the case is scheduled for November 5, 2018.
