The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) cybercrime wing has booked singer Meesha Shafi and eight others for their alleged involvement in a harassment campaign against superstar Ali Zafar.

The FIR against the accused was filed for a non-cognisable offence on the order of the FIA special court.

Ms Shafi, actor-host Iffat Omar, Leena Ghani, Fariha Ayub, Maham Javaid, Ali Gul, Haseemuz Zaman Khan, Humna Raza and Syed Faizan Raza have been booked under section 20 (1) of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 and R/W 109-PPC.

According to the FIR, the accused were summoned multiple times by the FIA cybercrime wing to present their defence, failing which granted a cause of criminal proceedings against them.

Earlier, the Lahore High Court disposed of a petition filed by singer Meesha Shafi in a harassment case lodged by her against singer Ali Zafar.

Shafi, in an appeal filed in August 2018, had challenged the Punjab ombudsperson (Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace) and governor’s decision to dismiss her complaint against Zafar whom she accused of sexual harassment.

On October 2, Justice Shahid Kareem reserved the verdict in the case.

Initially, Shafi had filed a complaint accusing Zafar of harassment with the provincial ombudsperson, who had rejected it on technical grounds. The reason cited for the dismissal was that she and Zafar “did not have an employer-employee relationship”.

Shafi then made an appeal against this decision with the Punjab governor. He, however, upheld the ombudsperson’s decision in July 2018, dismissing her request on “technical grounds”.

In November 2018, Ali Zafar had filed a complaint with FIA cybercrime wing, alleging that many social media accounts were posting “threats and defamatory material” against him. He provided details of some Twitter and Facebook accounts to support his claim.

Zafar had alleged that many fake accounts had been created to launch a smear campaign against him weeks before Meesha Shafi’s allegation of sexual harassment against him in April, 2018.

He stated that most of these fake accounts were allegedly connected to Ms Shafi.

“A twitter account @nehasaigol1, which posted 3,000 defamatory tweets against me and my family only in one year, [was] created 50 days before Meesha’s allegations of sexual harassment,” the singer-actor told FIA with documentary ‘evidence’.