Actor Hamza Ali Abbasi has claimed that he has been served a notice by the Punjab government for spreading ‘false news’ of rampant child abduction in Punjab.“So the government of Sharif Royal Family has sent me a prosecution notice that I spread false rumours about 900 children being kidnapped from Lahore and spread ‘fear’ in the people,” Hamza wrote a Facebook post on Wednesday.

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Punjab Law Minister while talking to Geo News, confirmed the development, saying all those involved in spreading false information on social media were sent notices by the government.“Where did Hamza Ali Abbasi get the information from,” Sanaullah asked. “This is not prosecution. He should apologise that his sources were not credible."In reply, Hamza said he was being targeted by the Punjab government, as a Punjab lawmaker belonging to the PML-N had also tweeted a similar status.The following status was posted by Hamza on August 3:

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Earlier this month, reports had suggested that in the Punjab province children were being kidnapped with an increasing frequency.In 2015, there were more than 1,200 kidnappings reported alone in Punjab. The figures are just as alarming for 2016. Until now, 767 children have been kidnapped from Punjab mostly from Lahore, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar.But instead the Punjab police played this down. Inspector General Punjab Police Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera told the media that the kidnapping of children “was not a serious issue” and it had been wrongly portrayed by the media because most of the children ran away from their homes due to harsh attitudes of their parents.Responding to the said notice, Hamza said as a common citizen, he consumed news from media houses and shared various news links to substantiate his stance.Hamza went on to question the authorities that if the news and information provided in the web links was true, why he was being questioned.“They sent me a notice showing the clear intention of this dictatorial government to take down any popular voice against them,” he wrote.The celebrity has not faced the wrath of the higher-ups for the first time as he had had fair share of controversies attached to him in the past as well.On July 19, Facebook had removed Hamza’s post in which he praised the slain Kashmiri rebel Burhan Wani. “My FB account deactivated for talking about Kashmir,” claimed Hamza in a tweet.Hamza had supported Wani in his post, saying the assassinated leader was not an ISI agent but a Kashmiri who had joined the rebellion after his brother was killed by Indian army.