Farhad Jarral owes me an apology – by Ravez Junejo
June 13, 2012: I log on to my Facebook account and find a message in my inbox. It’s from a man whom I know from his Facebook profile (let’s call him Abdul Basit Chaudhry aka ABC). He asked me for my cell phone number which I find amusing since I hardly know the man. When I probe into his request a little further, he says something that proves even more amusing and unbelievable than his number request.
“Some people think that I am you.”
Following is an abridged version of our conversation.
RAJ: Hahaha now who are these ppl and why would they think that?! Would I know them?ABC: I would greatly appreciate if you can send me your number or get in touch with LUBP by emailing *****@gmail.com and speaking to him. I saw your public clip as CNN i-journalist and sent that to my accuser but telephone number would be better.RAJ: Why are you so concerned about that other person? Just ignore him. If he isn’t accepting my CNN I-Report as proof of my existence he won’t be satisfied by anything. Can I know the name of this person by the way? He probably knows me too if he thinks I’m you.ABC: Farhad Jarral. I have told him many times that I am not responsible for what transpires between him and you and that it is none of my business if two people have a difference of opinion. This would be common sense and I am sure you agree. Therefore, I need your number so I can give it to Abdul Nishapuri who is mediating this between Farhad and me.[Now at this point I was very surprised. I had had a conversation with @FarhadJarral a few days ago on Twitter in which he had insisted on meeting me. Strangely that was right after I had criticised one of his posts on the Let Us Build Pakistan blog so I had erred on the side of caution and talked my way out of it. What I wanted to know now was why was this guy being accused of being me and why did Jarral say that as if it were a bad thing!]
ABC: he has accused me of being you to the LUBP board I thought of him as a friend due to our support for PPP and still feel that he has been mislead by others. I simply want to give your number to Abdul Nishapuri as he is the mediator. Please trust me when I say that once it is established to the LUBP board that not everyone who is critical of the mainstream is some avatar of Abdul or others (in this case me) it will embolden others to support a counter discourse.
ABC: Farhad has not even told us the details about what is the problem between the two of you. For all I know, he has simply been mislead as I am shocked by his allegations. He is holding me responsible for some “personal attacks” of which have absolutely no idea of.
I decided to take this matter up with Farhad Jarral himself and sent him a message on Twitter. What transpired then was even more stranger than the conversation narrated above!“Just got a message from (ABC) on Facebook that you are accusing him of being my fake profile. Is that true?”
A while later I got an angry and unnecessarily insulting response! “True! Need your identity to resolve the matter. I didn’t want to talk to people like you but responding just to get clearance.”
This conversation just kept getting stranger and I just felt like I had woken up in some Twilight Zone version of my life! Earlier this guy accused someone else of being me. Now he’s accusing me of being someone else entirely! So I sent a complaint to another LUBP editor, @AbdulNishapuri. Coincidentally, Nishapuri has also been accused of running @SalmaJafar and @Laibaah1’s profile on Twitter in the past. “Yaar yeh banda @farhadjarral paagal hogaya hai (Farhad Jarral has gone mad). Mainey issay KYA kaha hai I have NO IDEA what he’s talking abt!”
When I responded that he was ABSOLUTELY LYING about me abusing him and that I had said what the F I had done to him because HE was unnecessarily misbehaving with ME, he chose to run away like a coward and block me! So now I can only conclude that for these two days, either Farhad Jarral has been going through a nervous breakdown and has fits of madness. Or, he was drunk.
UPDATE (June 15, 2012): It was wrong of me to assume that the tweet in question was deleted. For some reason that was the only tweet that went missing from my Timeline so I assumed it had been removed by its author. The screen cap of that tweet is provided here as well now.
Screen cap 5
First published at: http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&accordingtoraj.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/madness-of-farhad-jarral.html
We had received the following email/cover note from Mr. Junejo:
“I know this will not be published since it involves a senior member of the editorial board. I am sending this to you anyway just for the record.
http://accordingtoraj.blogspot.com/2012/06/madness-of-farhad-jarral.html
Sincerely,
Ravez Junejo”
This is what I wrote:
“Dear Ravez: We have never shied away from publishing critical posts including those which directly criticized me or other editors. This too won’t be an exception.”
Mr Junejo did say that 🙂 And I wouldn’t say the whole LUBP owes me an apology. Its just one errant, dysfunctional person. Not that it matters anymore :)Thank you for proving your editorial integrity Nishapuri sb 🙂
That is why a blog should not take entries from anonymous people or should not entertain fake bloggers and ids. A writer should be responsible and should take responsibility of what he writes.