More women accuse Zafar of harassment
#Metoo reaches Pakistan as more women come forth accusing Ali Zafar; leading singer denies harassment allegation, threatens legal action against actor Meesha Shafi
ISLAMABAD: More women have come forward with allegation of sexual harassment against singer Ali Zafar, a day after singer and actor Meesha Shai accused him of sexual harassment on multiple occasions.
Pressure mounted on Friday against Zafar after he was hit with a sexual harassment allegation by Shai in the irst high proile “#metoo” accusation in the staunchly patriarchal country.
The allegations were trending across social media in Pakistan after popular actor-singer Meesha Shai posted a lengthy message on Twitter, accusing Zafar of physically harassing her on “more than one occasion.”
“This happened to me despite the fact I am an empowered, accomplished woman who is known for speaking her mind!” read the statement.
Zafar denied the accusations, threatening legal action against the actor.
“I intend to take this through the courts of law and to address this professionally and seriously rather than to lodge any allegations here, contesting personal vendettas on social media and in turn disrespecting the movement, my family, the industry and my fans,” he wrote on Twitter.
BOLD STEP
Lauding Shai for her “courage for speaking up,” Leena Ghani, a make-up artist took to Twitter to accused Zafar of crossing boundaries of what is appropriate behaviour between friends.
“Seeing Meesha’s courage it’s impossible for me to not speak now, not only in support of her but also to say she’s not alone. In the many years I have known Ali, he has on several occasions crossed boundaries of what is appropriate behaviour between friends. 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. Comments that would make your skin crawl and make you feel objectiied are not to be reduced to ‘a joke’[...] In most cases, women like myself run from a situation and hope to God you never cross paths again. And when by some misfortune, you do, you hide from him. Hoping that his sleazy eyes and hands don’t ind you again. His hands don’t run up and down your waist or hold you too tight while you desperately try to wiggle and run. The memories of the times when Ali thought he could get away by saying vulgar things still disgust me,” she wrote.
Journalist Maham Javaid also used her Twitter account to claim that Ali Zafar “tried to kiss her cousin and pull her into a restroom with him.”
“This was on a boat on the way to a party at the Yacht Club between 2004-2005. Why don’t I remember the date? Because this is what’s crazy: in those days such sexual harassment was such a non-issue and simultaneously such a taboo that we hardly spoke about it.”
“No woman goes public with allegations like this just for fun. Obviously you spend no time listening to women when they talk about how widespread harassment is in our society,” tweeted Pakistani novelist and columnist Bina Shah.
Zafar has dominated the music charts in Pakistan for nearly two decades and has also starred in a number of ilms including Bollywood satire Tere Bin Laden which translates as “Your Bin Laden.”
The #Metoo and #Timesup campaigns have gone global since allegations of sexual misconduct by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein were published last October, sparking an avalanche of accusations against other powerful men.