Court stays execution of Meesha Shafi’s arrest warrants

A Sessions court on Monday stayed the execution of warrants of arrest issued against singer Meesha Shafi by a judicial magistrate in a case registered under the cybercrime law by actor-cum-singer Ali Zafar on charges of running a malicious campaign against him on social media.

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The singer, through her lawyer, pleaded that she is a resident of Canada and it is not possible for her to appear at every hearing. She pointed out that she moved an application for exemption of personal attendance but the magistrate on Feb 19 illegally rejected her application and issued bailable arrest warrants.

She asked the court to set aside an order pertaining to her arrest warrants.

“So, keeping reliance on the arguments of learned counsel for the petitioner and the affidavit, learned trial court is restrained to adopt coercive measures against the petitioner, in the meanwhile, “read the order issued by the additional sessions Rai Muhammad Yasin Shaheen.

In September 2020, the FIA’s special court had registered an FIR against singer Meesha, model Iffat Omar and nine others on charges of running a social media campaign against Zafar.

Other than Meesha and Iffat, Leena Ghani, Fareeha Ayub, Maham Javed, Ali Gul Pir, Haseemuz Zaman Khan, Humna Raza and Syed Faizan Raza were nominated in the FIR.

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Meesha had accused Zafar of sexual harassment on Twitter. Subsequently, Zafar reported the social media campaign against him to the FIA Cyber Crime Wing and lodged a complaint.