Veena vs FHM: The show must go on

Veena Malik and FHM India get into a legal tussle.

KARACHI:

In the most recent development on the mysterious case of Veena Malik, FHM India has countered the actor’s claim of Rs100 million with their own claim of INR250 million. Malik had earlier sent the magazine a legal notice for publishing what she claimed were ‘morphed’ nude pictures of her on the cover of the magazine’s December issue. FHM India has denied that her photo has been morphed, and also claimed that Malik was the one who had initially pursued the magazine for a shoot.

Legal issues

On Monday, December 5, Malik’s PR manager, Sohail Rashid, sent out a warning, “If within 24 hours, Rs100 million are not given to Veena, she will head to the court. Kabeer Sharma [the editor of FHM] has smashed Veena’s credibility and image.”

A day later, Rashid confirmed that Malik had filed two more complaints, one at a police station and the other at a cyber crime cell department. Rashid quotes the actor as saying, “The photographer and the editor of the magazine have caused irreparable harm to my reputation and have deliberately called for [offensive] photographs to be published to defame me.”

Fighting fire with fire

Meanwhile, the notice sent by FHM claims damages worth INR250 million and asks for Malik to apologise for fabricating false claims. To make his claim stronger, Sharma said that originally Malik herself was keen on doing the shoot. “It would be pertinent to mention herein that your client pursued FHM magazine via photographer Mr Vishal Saxena in October 2011 for a shoot. Your client wanted to do a very sexy, bold and in-your-face shoot,” Sharma’s notice to Malik read.

Apart from that, regarding the controversy of the ISI tattoo painted on the actor’s arm, Sharma stated, “When we discussed this concept, Veena was aware of it and was quite excited about it. Now she states that there are 56 institutes which run under the name of ISI. Does she not know what the ISI is? How ignorant can a person be?”

Meanwhile, as a counter argument to the claim that the pictures have been morphed, Sharma adds, “Veena’s earlier emails are evident of the fact that she approved of the concept. For instance, when the offer was made to her, she wrote in an e-mail ‘Love the idea’ and then later in another e-mail, ‘Looking forward to the cover’. However, when confronted, Veena completely backtracked.”

However, the legal notice sent by Malik stated otherwise. “After the completion of the shoot, our client was shown the four images with the clothes. The photo in which she has posed with her tattoo on her hand was taken with a bikini and/or a thong which was worn by our client and also with hot pants and a broad belt.”

Meanwhile, in light of the interviews that Malik gave on various TV channels across Pakistan, Sharma highlights the different versions of the story presented by the actor.”If you watch the string of interviews starting from December 2 till December 6, you’ll notice that she has said different things to different channels. First, she asserts the shoot hasn’t taken place, then she says it has and then in another channel she asserts that the shoot took place with her clothes on.”

“All I would say is that she was fully aware of the concept of the shoot and what the cover [of the magazine] would be like,” adds Sharma

Meanwhile, regarding when the video of the shoot will be released, Sharma said, “We’re not going to release the video until we are told to produce it in court. We will happily produce it in court.” On the other hand, Malik’s legal notice clearly states, “In photo shoots on November 23, 2011, there was no nude photographs taken nor were there any of video shots taken of any nude images.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2011.