LAHORE: Singer Meesha Shafi, facing a cross-examination in a defamation suit by fellow actor-cum-singer Ali Zafar, said women can lie publicly by levelling false allegations.

“Anything is possible,” Ms Shafi said as Zafar’s counsel sought her opinion on whether a woman can lie publicly by leveling serious false allegations like actress Talia S. Mirza leveled against her (Shafi) and her brother Faris Shafi.

At the outset of the cross-examination at a district court through a video link on June 22, advocate Umar Tariq Gill, the counsel for Zafar, showed Shafi a social media post of Talia Mirza regarding allegations against the female singer and her brother.

Meesha Shafi’s counsel Saqib Jillani raised an objection saying the document/post had already been confronted and exhibited when the same question was asked by the plaintiff’s counsel in a hearing last year.

He said the question was being repeated to confuse the defendant (Shafi). With the court’s permission, the plaintiff’s counsel asked Shafi whether she believed the allegations of Ms Mirza against her brother. Shafi said her brother had offered an apology.

Asked to answer in yes or no, she said there was a big “if” but if anything happened at least her brother had the grace to apologise.

“Since she (Talia S Mirza) is lying about her allegations about me which I am sure about it becomes a little hard to believe her,” Shafi added.

She also denied a statement of Ms Mirza that she (Shafi) was capable of generating malicious rumours about anyone.

Asked about the motive of Talia S Mirza if her allegations were false, Shafi said she had not thought about the post of Ms Mirza very deeply.

She said a lot of people said a lot of horrible things about her and she did not say anything. “There are a lot of bad people in the world,” she added.

To a question about the defamation litigation between US actress Amber Heard and her former husband Johnny Depp, Shafi said she still believed Amber despite a penalty imposed on the actress.

Meesha Shafi also denied having leveled the charges of sexual harassment only to deprive Ali Zafar of his work with multinational companies.

The cross-examination would continue at the next hearing.

In his defamation suit, Zafar said the 2018 allegations of sexual harassment by Shafi had tarnished his image in public and his family had been facing agony and pain. He asked the court to issue a decree against Shafi and direct her to pay him Rs1bn as damages.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2023