Singer, model and actor Meesha Shafi took to Twitter earlier this week accusing singer and musician and actor Ali Zafar, who had shared the stage with her for many years, of sexually harassing her not only once but twice.
The tweet not only opened a floodgate of debate between the fans of both the celebrities on the Internet and the social media, “the all of a sudden revelation” has encouraged other (women) victims of harassment to come to the fore and share their ordeal they had to endure at the hand of “licentious” male singer.
The sudden sexual harassment allegations againstAli Zafar had pushed him on the offensive who vehemently denied that he ever dared to touch the titillating female artists, who kept mum, for years under mysterious circumstances, before they mustered the courage to “tweet” about the bizarre act from the “sexy star”.
Humna Raza, a blogger, Maham Javaid, a journalist, and Leena Ghani, a makeup artist, have also joined the bandwagon of accusers who said that Ali Zafar sexually harassed them.
Meesha Shafi, the Bhaag Milkha Bhaag” actor also revealed that the first person to whom she revealed this fact was none other than her husband, Mahmood Rehman, who surprisingly, also remained quiet for almost two years.
Her mother Saba Hamid was also heart-broken after this incident was revealed to her and said that she stands by her established artist
daughter, the mother of two, who has become a vehement member of the “Me Too” campaign.
When asked why she kept mum for so long, she defended herself by saying that “in our society, if you speak of sexual harassment, it is considered inappropriate and takes a lot of courage to speak out in this country”.
The question arises can it be proved that the harassment actually occurred? It is very hard to prove such cases.
Critics say that it was nothing but just a stunt to get publicity and remain in the limelight and aimed to defame Ali Zafar, a well-known and a self-made man and has given 8 straight hits in Bollywood. They say that it was part of a conspiracy to shatter the reputation of the multi-talented star who has never been accused of anything like this before.
The heartthrob of Pakistani rock music Ali Zafar denied the allegations made by Ms Shafi and vowed to take the matter to court and that silence is not an option.
“I have noticed that in the last few years, our moral values have drastically gone down, and the social media is the main culprit in this deterioration because, on this platform, people feel that anyone can say anything about anyone without any checks and balances,” he said in a fresh tweet.
He added: “I have no fears about these baseless allegations of harassment leveled against me and I believe that the truth will prevail since I am going to move the court within a day or two, but, I am hurt over the misuse of the ‘Me Too’ movement by my accusers without any proof, because it will only bring a bad name and tarnish the image of my country.”
A year earlier a case like this got a lot of media hype in Bollywood in which Kangana Ranaut claimed that Indian actor Hrithik Roshan, a father of two, harassed her through emails multiple times and she had broken her silence after a long time because she was scared of the society.
This case is very similar to that one, but the big difference is that Hrithik Roshan kept his silence and spoke at the right time to expose Kangana and sent her a legal notice when she infamously called him her silly Ex.
But Ali Zafar has decided to take his own route and announced to file a defamation case sooner than later and settle this issue once and for all.
