A social media activist from Sialkot broke down on camera after receiving a notice from the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) following a complaint filed by Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) leader and former federal minister Khawaja Saad Rafique.
As per the details, the NCCIA acted on Rafique’s complaint against alleged character assassination and summoned Sheikh Saira to its office in Islamabad. The notice, she said, was sent to her on WhatsApp and she had no idea which post or tweet had triggered the complaint.
“I have so much respect for Saad Rafique. I have always praised him, saying he is a good and noble person in the PML-N,” she said.
Saira maintained that she “only posts good and decent tweets” and doesn’t know which of them prompted Rafique to serve him a notice.
She also raised concerns about being summoned to Islamabad as a woman living alone. “Everyone knows about me… that I do not have a father or a mother. I do not have a husband. My elder brother is ill at home.”
“How should I go? With whom should I go? At what time should I leave? It is very far.”
She said the notice had brought her family distress and that she feared people would misunderstand the situation. “My family has a reputation. This is insult in the family. People who are not educated may think that I have been called for some reason. What should I tell my family?”
Saira appealed directly to Rafique to intervene. “My request to Saad Rafique is to tell them in the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency] that they should not trouble me,” she said, adding that she had done nothing.
“I have never been in any ground situation. I have always respected institutions.” She went on to say she was “a helpless and poor woman”, and requested that she not be “harassed”.
While the details of the notice have not yet been disclosed, it merits a mention that it comes just days after Rafique vowed to report individuals involved in running a smear campaign and levelling false accusations against him.
The campaign included claims falsely linking Rafique to some apartments in the “illegally-constructed” Constitutional One project of the federal capital.
