Women, in general, and Pakistani women, in particular, have lately been coming out against their sexual harassers, rather fearlessly. Things seem to be improving and even though, we still have a long way to go as a nation, it looks like we are finally on the right track when it comes to giving women a space to voice their grievances. Amidst all of us, there is one name from the industry that has always blatantly called it out for its support of sexual harassers. We are talking about none other than Jamshed Jami – the director and activist of Moor’s fame.

Jami’s track record

Jami has been very consistent in his denouncement of sexual harassment in the industry. Recently, Eman Suleman called out the industry for its support of sexual harassers and Jami supported her through and through.

Jami, in a series of posts on his Facebook, announced that they will not rent any of their cameras to any sexual predators. He also mentioned that they will boycott any and all post-production work to sexual predators in the industry.

However, things have taken a weird turn after the filmmaker and director, Sohail Javed has decided to take Jami to court over sexual harassment allegations. The former says that the latter has falsely accused him of sexual harassment just because Jami decided to read a letter out loud that didn’t even mention any names. Chor ki darhi main tinka much?

The story behind the letter

The letter reveals how she met the famous director who then took her to his apartment and later on, raped her. The victim then went on to share the trauma following the assault and how she coped with her.

Here is what it said, as reported by Pakistan Today.

“I left the country and it took me two years to overcome it,” she wrote. “There are other young girls too and they feel as helpless and hopeless as I did when I went through this abuse. And he hasn’t stopped. He continues. Many others like him feel even more powerful because survivors like me are quiet. I could not stay quiet anymore.”

“The people whom it concerns, by now, must have figured his name out by the details I provided above. It is upon them to show their integrity, exclude sexual predators like him from their social circles and discourage this behaviour by not subscribing to their art again, or go they can back to work on their current moral grounds which continues to take and damage countless young lives. Many people in the industry know and still, continue to work with him. I wonder if our society is mature enough to hold them all accountable for this disease their favourite celebrities and people in power, allow to spread? I am not sure,” she added.

When contacted by the aforementioned newspaper, the organizers of the Lahooti Melo said, “We do not know why the specific person has done this against Jami and what makes that person think that it was for him”.

As for Jami, he says the truth will eventually be revealed during the proceeding of the case, “I have full faith in the justice system and I believe the truth shall prevail.” We still don’t know why Sohail Javed would get himself in this shitstorm, given the letter didn’t even mention any names.

As this Pakistani tweep said and we quote:

By taking Jami to court for defamation, Sohail Javed basically did what the rest of us couldn't: he named himself as the culprit of that anonymous Lahooti Melo letter.https://t.co/sXKga83s7v

— Manal Faheem Khan (@ManalFaheemKhan) March 21, 2019

It looks like Sohail Javed nay apne paon par kulhari mari hai. Guess we’ll have to now just wait and see how the situation unfolds.