Suleman Shehbaz serves Rs1b defamation notice on Imran Ismail

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s son Suleman Shehbaz served a defamation notice worth Rs1 billion to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Ismail on Wednesday after he alleged that Suleman owned a solar panel business that benefitted from the government's policy of investing in clean and renewable energy.

According to the legal notice, unless Imran did not apologise for and withdraw the accusations against Suleman within 14 days, the billion-rupee defamation suit would be filed against him, Express News reported.

The notice clarified that Suleman did not own any solar energy business, neither was he a government official nor a member of any cabinet.

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The notice termed the allegations levelled by former Sindh governor as “baseless and false.

The notice further contended that the former governor had more than 9.5 million followers on Twitter and that his tweets regarding these allegations were retweeted at least 4,000 times and received more than 10,000 likes.

The notice was sent under Section 8 of the Defamation Ordinance and gave Ismail 14 days to correct himself, remove his tweets from social media, withdraw the allegations and apologize unconditionally in writing.

The legal notice was sent to Ismail's Karachi address on July 6; screenshots of Imran Ismail's tweets were also attached with the legal notice.