New Delhi: A 25-second clip that allegedly features Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif walking with a woman has, according to a mother’s complainant, become the reason for disappearance of her son.
And the person who posted that video on social media is Pakistani influencer is none other than Hareem Shah, a subject of a federal probe, ‘victim’ of voyeurism and the darling of thousands who remain glued to her accounts to keep up with her seemingly herostratic fame.
Shah has now alleged that her husband Bilal was “abducted from Karachi on the orders of Maryam Nawaz” — PML-N leader and daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
بظاہر مریم نواز کی ایما پر میرے شوہر بلال کو کراچی سے اغواء کیا گیا ہے۔ آئی ایس آئی سے اپیل کرتی ہوں کہ بلال کو جلد از جلد بازیاب کرایا جائے۔ pic.twitter.com/PSpls0oJZR
— Hareem Shah (@_Hareem_Shah) September 4, 2023
In a video message she posted on X (formerly Twitter) Sunday, Hareem Shah alleged that her husband Bilal had been “missing” for the last seven days, and that he had been “illegally abducted” by “people in civil” — code in Pakistan for non-uniformed law enforcement personnel known to ‘pick up’ critics of the establishment (read GHQ and the ruling party).
“It has been seven days. Bilal and I were in London. He had to go back to Pakistan for some work. This was evening time, when he stepped out after lunch and some cars and people in civil illegally abducted him and took him somewhere,” she said in the video message.
Adding that Bilal is “innocent” and has no political affiliations, Shah said the family filed a police complaint and a petition in court but both were in vain. “This is an affront to the rule of law in Pakistan,” she lamented.
میرے شوہر بلال کو سادہ کپڑوں میں ملبوس افراد اغواہ کرکے لئے گئے ہیں۔ قانون نافذ کرنیوالے اداروں سے درخواست کرتی ہوں میرے شوہر کا پتہ کروائیں۔ بلال کا کسی سیاسی جماعت سے کوئی تعلق نہیں۔ pic.twitter.com/lYebJ2clx6
— Hareem Shah (@_Hareem_Shah) September 3, 2023
She then requested the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistani establishment’s go-to agency for cloak-and-dagger services, to help locate her husband Bilal and ensure his safe return.
Reports cited a police complaint by Bilal Shah’s mother in which she alleged that he was ‘abducted’ from the Korangi area in Karachi on 27 August. The mother also alleged in her complaint that Bilal was picked up by law enforcement personnel due to his wife Hareem’s social media posts.
On 21 August, Hareem Shah had shared a video on X showing PML-N leader and former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif walking alongside an unidentified woman. The 25-second unverified video was shared with the caption: “Video 1: Shehbaz Sharif’s two-hour-long meeting with his new ‘girlfriend’ at a private hotel in London? First sat in the hotel lobby and drank tea for half an hour and then went to the room. Any shame?”
وڈیو 1 : 4 شادیاں کرنے والے شہباز شریف کی لندن کے نجی ہوٹل میں اپنی نئی "گرل فرینڈ" سے دو گھنٹے طویل ملاقات؟ پہلے ہوٹل لابی میں بیٹھ کر آدھ گھنٹہ چائے پی پھر کمرے کی طرف چل پڑے۔ کوئی شرم حیا؟@CMShehbaz pic.twitter.com/0Wv5kcuf7o
— Hareem Shah (@_Hareem_Shah) August 21, 2023
But this was hardly the first time Hareem Shah was caught in the Pakistani establishment’s line of fire.
Also read: ‘Lions on the street, donkeys in govt’—Pakistanis amused by big cat roaming free in Karachi
Hareem Shah and her ‘fame’ encounters
Shah recently invited criticism from many on social media after she mocked the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission in a post on X, saying that “it would have been better” if the Modi government “had used the same money to build toilets all over India”.
Modi Government spent millions of dollars to send the #Chandrayaan3 mission to the moon, but it would have been BETTer if they had used the same money to build toilets all over India. Get your priorities right.😵💫 pic.twitter.com/wbsIaN3D8i
— Hareem Shah (@_Hareem_Shah) August 23, 2023
In January this year, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) initiated a money-laundering probe against her and freezed her bank accounts after she shared a video of herself with two stacks of British pounds and boasted that she had carried this “heavy amount” of foreign currency from Pakistan to London without being apprehended by customs.
The Federal Board of Revenue in Pakistan does not permit a passenger travelling abroad to carry foreign currency upward of $10,000.
Later that month, Shah shared a video of herself with a swollen upper lip, claiming that this was a result of her having left a lip filler treatment midway on account of authorities freezing her bank accounts.
In October 2019, Hareem Shah found herself speeding down the wrong lane when a probe was initiated against her after she shared videos of herself sitting in a chair designated for the prime minister in a conference room at the Foreign Office building. She later apologised for her actions and revealed, without dropping any names, that she was allowed entry to the building housing the headquarters of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs by a “high ranking government official”.
Earlier this year, Shah made headlines yet again after she accused two of her ‘friends’ of leaking an intimate video of her which she alleged they secured from her cell phone without her consent. Muddying the waters further, one of the two ‘friends’, who was also Shah’s former housemate, shot back by claiming that Shah “leaked” her own video to garner “fame”.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)