KARACHI: The Dawn chief executive officer, Hameed Haroon, on Wednesday approached the Sindh High Court (SHC) against filmmaker Jamshed Mahmood, popularly known as Jami, for making “defamatory statements” against him.

Mr Haroon through his lawyer filed a suit in the SHC and submitted that the accusations levelled by Jami were baseless and unfounded and maintained that these allegations came at a time when protests against Dawn were being carried out.

The plaintiff further argued that Dawn was specifically being targeted by the defendant and that he (Jami) had not provided even an iota of proof.

Mr Haroon asked the court to perpetually restrain the defendant from making, circulating and publishing defamatory statements against him.

He also sought directive for Jami to permanently remove/delete the defamatory statements from his Twitter account and to issue a public statement that the allegations against the plaintiff as attributed to the defendant stand withdrawn from all social media posts and other media platforms.

Furthermore, Mr Haroon demanded the damages of Rs1 billion from the defendant and the amount “to be disbursed to any charitable organisation or for any noble cause (including the freedom of the press) that the court deems appropriate and on such terms and conditions as the court determines”.

Last year in October, Jami came forward with an allegation that he was raped by a media tycoon 13 years ago and, on Dec 28, named Mr Haroon as his alleged rapist. In response, Mr Haroon issued a statement categorically rejecting the rape accusations, saying he would initiate legal action.

Earlier this month, Mr Haroon sent a legal notice to the filmmaker under Section 8 of the Defamation Ordinance 2002, asking for an unconditional public apology and retraction of rape allegations.

In response, the filmmaker had called for the withdrawal of Mr Haroon’s legal notice within a week.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2020