Actress Momina Iqbal has given a detailed account of how her relationship with PML-N MPA Saqib Chadhar began, alleging that he introduced his own wife to her as his sister for nearly a year before the truth came out.
Speaking on a recent YouTube podcast, Iqbal walked through the timeline of events amid her ongoing legal dispute with Chadhar.
Iqbal said Chadhar first began messaging her in 2019 across WhatsApp, Snapchat and other platforms. She said that she blocked him on several occasions and tried various ways to avoid him.
He eventually sent her a message saying, “I want to marry you. I want to bring my family to meet you.” She said she responded the way any normal person would and agreed to talk to him.
They later met for dinner in Lahore’s DHA area after she finished a shoot.
Speaking about Saqib’s background, Iqbal said he told her that he had never been married before and was raised by his siblings after his mother passed away. She said one of his sisters lives with him and has two children.
She then drew a direct contrast with what Chadhar told her about his own household. According to Iqbal, he repeatedly described a woman living with him in similar terms.
“My sister lives with me. She has two children,” she recalled him telling her. She added that this woman was in fact his wife Sumaira Saqib.
Iqbal said the deception continued for roughly a year. After their first meeting, she left Lahore for work commitments, returning briefly around forty days later to meet her parents before heading to Karachi for a longer stretch.
During that short visit, she said she met Chadhar’s brothers, his employees and other people close to him. None of them mentioned that he was already married or had children, she emphasised.
She said her work schedule, often stretching from ten in the morning to ten at night with barely a day off, meant she spent long periods away from Lahore. This, she said, left her with limited opportunity to look into his background.
Addressing criticism that she should have investigated him earlier, Iqbal pushed back firmly. She questioned why people expected her to conduct background checks on someone whose family was actively meeting hers and visiting her home.
“How was I supposed to know,” she asked. She added that she saw no reason to suspect anything given how openly his family engaged with her.
Iqbal said she eventually visited Chadhar’s family home in Chiniot, where she met his father, brothers, sisters-in-law and their children, but not his wife. She maintained that at no point during that visit did anyone tell her he was already married.
She said she later learned he had in fact been married twice, with a second wife reportedly living in his native village.
The turning point, according to Iqbal, came when she received a phone call from a woman who identified herself as “Mrs Saqib.” Asked what initially drew her to him before he held political office, Iqbal said she believed at the time that he was unmarried and settled, describing how he spoke about managing his family’s business, including petrol pumps.
Iqbal said the fallout from Sumaira’s call turned her life upside down, with the woman reportedly calling her on set, her makeup artist and her line producers. She said she wanted the situation to end and told Chadhar directly that she had never asked him to marry her, even as he continued to ask for more time to sort things out.
She also said she remained loyal to him throughout that period.
Asked whether Chadhar had fallen for her or she for him, Iqbal paused before answering. When pressed further on whether she had been loyal to him and had genuine feelings for him, she said yes.
She agreed that the repeated revelations and what she described as betrayal eventually caused those feelings to fade.
Iqbal also addressed Chadhar’s claims that she and her husband Hamza Habib had demanded money through her lawyer to settle the matter, reportedly starting at Rs20 crore before dropping to Rs11 crore and then Rs9 crore. She denied any such deal had been reached.
“No money deal was made between us,” she said. She explained that while people connected to the sitting government had reportedly offered her money, Chadhar himself had not.
She said her lawyers held talks without her direct involvement, and that her side’s real demand was for Chadhar to admit the truth publicly. She alleged that he initially agreed to record an apology video before backing out.
The dispute dates back to May 2026, when Iqbal publicly alleged she had faced online harassment, cyberbullying and death threats from a PML-N MPA she did not initially name, later identified as Chadhar.
Following pressure from PML-N’s top leadership and the Punjab CM’s office, the NCCIA summoned both parties on May 21. Iqbal then filed a formal complaint accusing Chadhar of stalking, blackmail and criminal intimidation, alleging he turned abusive after she rejected his marriage proposal upon learning he was already married to two women.
On June 4, the NCCIA registered a case against Chadhar under several sections of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) and the Pakistan Penal Code.
The case has since taken multiple turns. At a hearing on July 28, an NCCIA investigating officer told the sessions court that Chadhar had been found guilty following investigation.
A new IO reversed that position on September 3, telling the court a fresh probe found no grounds to arrest Chadhar or his wife Sumaira at that stage. The couple then withdrew their bail petitions, and the court disposed of them as withdrawn.
On September 11, the NCCIA issued fresh notices to both Iqbal and Chadhar after new digital evidence emerged, forming a special investigation team headed by a deputy director to examine the material within one month.
Iqbal has been summoned on September 14 and Chadhar on September 11, with the agency stressing it would be premature to call either party guilty or innocent before the inquiry concludes.
