PML-N MPA Sania Ashiq reports 'harassment, defamation' to FIA

• Sania Ashiq reaches out to FIA's cyber crime cell for allegedly being subjected to a “campaign of harassment, defamation, and blackmail”.
• Takes to Twitter to call the “online abuse” out, terming it a “targeted harassment strategy”.
• Says she has been receiving threats on phone calls and has been linked with repulsive posts and remarks on social media since July 2021.

PML-N's MPA in Punjab Assembly Sania Ashiq has reached out to the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) National Response Centre for Cyber Crime (NR3C) for allegedly being subjected to a “campaign of harassment, defamation, and blackmail”.

The MPA took to Twitter to call the “online abuse” out, terming it a “targeted harassment strategy”.

According to Ashiq, she has been receiving threats on phone calls and has been linked with repulsive posts and remarks on social media.

Ashiq stated in the post that the series of harassment attempts have now reached the point where a “picture of her father” on his deathbed has been doctored, giving it an illicit context.

“A targeted harassment strategy starting with hundreds of threatening calls, 3rd grade songs on TikTok, repulsive posts on Facebook, random clips associated to me; has now culminated at using picture of my father literally during last hours of his life, moments I can never erase from memory,” read Ashiq's Twitter post.

Saying that she has decided to report the accounts and individuals involved in the harassment, Ashiq attached a copy of her complaint lodged to the FIA NR3C.

According to the complaint’s text, Ashiq has been facing harassment since July 2021 by numerous accounts operating on social media under “original and fictitious names”.

“My ordeal began when a number of TikTok accounts [started] using and editing my video clips from political events by adding extremely lewd songs and vulgar remarks to them. This was followed by hundreds of fake and imposter accounts registered in my name and using my pictures,” said Ashiq in the complaint.

It further stated that the MPA then started receiving calls and messages from different unknown numbers on a daily basis in which the callers would make “unbearably offensive sexual comments”, forcing her to change her mobile phone number.

Ashiq also mentioned her pictures with her father being doctored and requested the authorities concerned to take stern and effective legal action against the acts intended at her “character assassination” and “ulterior political gains”.

“This is not only defamatory but it has caused me and my family a great deal of distress,” she said.

She has assured authorities of providing all the call records to the investigation officer whenever required.

“I have decided to follow all legal procedures to identify such accounts and report them to relevant authorities; because being a member of legislative assembly it's my duty to follow the rule of land wherever possible. I’ve to prove to every girl that this society still cares for us,” she said.

Maryam Nawaz urges people to play their part

PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz has urged people to "play their role" to "put the blackmailing and harassment" to an end.

"Everyone please play your part in this. We need to put an end to this blackmailing and harassment. No victim should now take it lying down," read Maryam's post.