Hamza Ali Abbasi comes under fire for spreading child kidnapping rumours

LAHORE: The Punjab government has issued a prosecution notice to actor Hamza Ali Abbasi for sharing allegedly unverified reports on social media about widespread kidnappings of children in the province, the television star said on Wednesday.

The television actor on Wednesday posted on his official Facebook account that 900 children in Punjab had gone missing, a claim that the Supreme Court and top police officials have refuted as being based on rumours. The Facebook post has now been removed.

"I had tweeted about kidnappings of 900 children on the internet over which I have been issued the notice," he said speaking to Geo News.

The notice was issued by the Punjab government's prosecution department.

"The Sharif family monarchy has passed the cyber crime bill to prosecute those who criticize them. They have sent me a prosecution letter saying I did not write the truth and that the Punjab police statistics show a different picture. They say I have written them without any verification."

Abbasi said he had quoted statistics from reports of a reputable newspaper which claimed that more than 650 children had been kidnapped. He claimed to have reached the 900 figure by adding information from various social media sites.

Hamza refused to apologize for misleading his 3600,000 fans on Facebook. Instead he complained of being treated unfairly.

"I think this is very unfair. They have sent me the first letter of the cyber crime bill only because I'm such a consistent critic of the government,” he said

"They have asked me to apologize for the social media posts which I will not," he said.

Instead Hamza came up with this arrogant post which proves he clearly does not read his news beyond the headlines