The Punjab government has issued a letter warning actor Hamza Ali Abbasi against spreading rumours regarding missing children and creating a sense of insecurity among the general public through social media. Stating the actor had not verified the information before posting it on his Facebook page on August 3, the Punjab public prosecution department’s letter ordered Abbasi to take immediate corrective action and acknowledge his blunder.
“In case, this does not happen, the government will be constrained to initiate legal action against you for spreading rumours,” the department warned.
Abbasi had on August 3 posted on his Facebook page that “in three months, over 900 children were kidnapped in Punjab including 400 in Lahore alone”.
He also posted a private news channel TV screenshot carrying National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq’s picture and his statement that “such incidents continue happening”.
Abbasi also commented that “the ruling politicians had become insensitive animals” and he was afraid “the nation would again vote for those animals and send them to the corridors of power.”
Punjab public prosecution department additional secretary (prosecution), Mahmood Hassan, stated in his letter that the government, while investigating reports regarding missing children, had come across the actor’s Facebook post, “wherein it was claimed that in three months over 900 children had been kidnapped including 400 in Lahore alone.”
Hassan’s letter pointed out that official records, however, showed the number of children, who went missing over the last three months (May, June and July), “was less than one third that you reported.”