Sana Javed defamation case comes to a close as FIA fails to find evidence of 'smear campaign'

Almost a month after actor Sana Javed filed a case against several people for a "smear campaign" run against her on social media, the FIA has closed the case due to lack of evidence.

Makeup artists and models had come forward to share their experiences of working with the actor and called her out for her poor behaviour. In response, the actor had issued legal notices, claiming that all the things shared online were a part of "smear campaign" against her. On Friday, the head of the FIA Sindh's cybercrime wing, Imran Riaz, tweeted that no evidence was found against the actor and therefore the lodged complaint has been closed. Riaz confirmed to Images that the Twitter account through which the statement about the case was made was authentic but declined to comment on the case any further.

Riaz's Twitter post read, "The complaint filed by Actress Sana Javed against her cyber defamation has been closed. The provided evidence was closely scrutinised by the legal team and the content found was about sharing of personal experiences of different coworkers while at work with Sana Javed." He also wrote that the technical team was also unable to find "any evidence of the planned smear campaign" against her.

His tweets were shared by the people that Javed had mentioned in her legal notice that she filed on March 11. Makeup artists Rhyan Thomas, Ikram Gohar and Omayr Waqar and stylist Aneela Murtaza took to their Instagram stories and uploaded screenshots of Riaz's tweets. "What a slap" wrote Waqar while Murtaza wrote "what a kick".

Javed had gone on the offensive after being accused of being rude, unprofessional and in one case, holding someone hostage in a room. "In the past 72 hours I've been subjected to all sorts of lies and fabricated stories, bullying, hate speech and threats," Javed had written in her Instagram post. According to the post, she served notices to three people — makeup artist Waqar, stylist Murtaza and model Manal Saleem. The case began after Saleem posted about an actor who had behaved badly. However, she never named the said actor.

In the pictures of the defamation notice she shared online, Javed had refuted comments that Saleem had made in her story. The legal notices argued that Javed had a following of 6.8 million on Instagram and Saleem's account saw a 6,000-follower increase after her story was posted, and claimed that it illustrated that the move was "a publicity stunt so as to increase your following at the cost of our client's [Javed] goodwill."

In her post, Javed called the situation a "proper smear campaign" that has been initiated against her by a group of individuals that has "caused severe trauma" not only for her but for her family as well.

What actually happened

It all started when model Saleem took to Instagram to share her experience working with an actor who belittled her. Saleem had originally written, "Requesting all the clients to not ask me to shoot with any actress/celebrity ever again. With their self entitled attitudes they think we are 'do takay ki [two bit] models'. The audacity to say that on my face! Hum bhi kam krne atay hain, muft main zaleel honay nahi atay [We come here to work, not to be insulted for free]."

Saleem's story was shared by Waqar and Murtaza. Waqar wrote, "guess who is she [Manal] talking about? P.S it's just one person, not all actresses are the same," but did not name any actor. Murtaza reposted both of their stories and wrote "Sana" in a thought bubble emoji.

Both Waqar and Murtaza issued legal notices of their own to Javed.

After Saleem came makeup artists Gohar and Thomas who shared their side of the story as well. Gohar wrote that the Aye Musht-e-Khaak actor had "torched" him for a simple rose-gold eyeshadow he had applied on her eyes during her nikah trials. She even refused to let him use the bathroom at the location and requested that the makeup artist must use the one across the street at a restaurant instead. Thomas had written in his post that Javed during the PISA awards in Dubai had held him hostage until he completed the makeup look.

Others also began speaking out against the actor and brand Rang Rasiya released a statement on March 16 on their business page that read, "In light of recent allegations brought forth against Sana Javed, we at Rang Rasiya decided to disassociate ourselves from the concerned person who was before the main face of our Eid campaign." They also confirmed that the recent incident involving both Saleem and Javed had occurred on their shoot for which the brand is "deeply disturbed" as well.

"We did a reshoot with another celebrity as we respect public sentiment, despite the cost that we have borne. It is a request to the fashion fraternity to please be considerate towards the brands too who spend millions on such shoots apart from their time and effort," concluded the statement.

But Javed was not without support — celebrities such as Fahad Mustafa and Shoaib Malik lent support to the actor.

Javed has not commented on the case being closed yet.

With additional reporting by Imtiaz Ali