LAHORE: Film actor Uzma Khan on Thursday demanded security of person and property a day after she got registered a first information report with the police against attackers who she accused of angrily storming her house and torturing her and her sister.

At a jointly addressed news conference at the Lahore Press Club on Thursday, Uzma Khan and her sister Huma Khan, flanked by lawyers Mian Ali Ashfaq and Barrister Hassaan Khan, complained that they had received life threats. They didn’t specify the source of these threats.

Mian Ashfaq said their main demands were that Ms Uzma and her sister should be provided with protection, the investigation of the case should be conducted under the personal supervision of the DIG investigation and the accused should be immediately arrested.

He said the house where the torture incident took place did not belong to Usman Malik — as claimed by Malik’s wife in a video released late on Wednesday. It was the house of a close friend of Uzma Khan, he said.

The lawyer said he was going to move for registration of a case under cybercrime laws with the FIA, while acknowledging Barrister Hassaan Khan’s presence by Uzma as her legal adviser.

Uzma Khan claimed that Usman Malik had been wanting to marry her for the last two years. She did not know Usman’s wife and saw her for the first time the day the woman barged into her house at the head of a squad comprising security guards.

In a video message, Amna Usman Malik, identified as a daughter of prominent estate builder Malik Riaz Hussain, defended herself and her sisters in the Uzma torture case.

She said Uzma had tried to break up her 13-year-old marriage by developing relations with her husband.

“Firstly, I’d like to add that my husband, Usman Malik, has nothing to do with Malik Riaz Hussain. He is not a part of his immediate family. This is being done to malign Malik Riaz. This is a personal spat between Hassaan Khan Niazi (nephew of Prime Minister Imran Khan) and Malik Riaz Hussain.”

“I did not storm into someone’s home. This is not Uzma’s house. This is my husband’s other house which I followed him to so basically this is my husband’s home and I have every right to be there. I repeatedly warned this girl to save my 13-year-long marriage. This was not the first time I approached her.”

Ms Malik says she knows her husband is to be blamed the most.

On the other hamd Malik Riaz has also denied any involvement in the case.

“I categorically rebut this malicious propaganda associating me with a viral video. Usman is not my nephew. I’m appalled at such below the belt attempt to malign me for something I’m not involved in any capacity,” he said and threatened to file a defamation lawsuit against anyone trying to “wrongfully implicate” him.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2020