An 18-year-old Pakistani girl levelled allegations of sexual harassment against Khalid Bajwa, the CEO of Pakistani music-streaming service Patari through a series of tweets on Wednesday.
Patari was founded in February 2015 by Bajwa, Iqbal Talaat Bhatti and Humayun Haroon, and is reportedly the largest music-streaming service in Pakistan.
Bajwa is a popular name among millennials in Pakistan.
Minutes after the girl put out the following tweets, Twitter was buzzing with similar stories against the man.
The 18-year-old opened up to The Quint, saying:
I knew Khalid Bajwa solely on internet. We never met or spoke on call. Knew him before his start-up blew off and he became rich/famous full of power. But his advances were always weird and uncalled for. We were friends at first but then his remarks made me feel uncomfortable and I distanced myself. Everyone around me used to applaud him but no one knew what he really was like. He got married and has a kid now and even that didn’t stop him from sending lewd texts to girls half his age.
It was textbook harassment, she said.
Harassment was a lot of him asking for selfies, wanting to meeting up, foot fetishes, red nail polish obsession, wanting to see my mid-riff and wanting to give me a foot massage. All of which I had to avoid or change the topic. But, I was very intimidated by him, didn’t know how to speak up.
Her Account Opened a Can of Worms on Twitter in Pakistan
After the social media outrage against the man, Patari was quick to put out the following statement.
A day later, Patari investor issued the following statement:
The Quint independently tried to contact Patari. However, we received no response from them. Khalid Bajwa has now deleted his Twitter account.
No formal complaint has been registered against Bajwa as of now. This story will be updated if and when we get a response.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)