5 December 2011 Last updated at 08:33 ET

Veena Malik sues FHM India magazine over 'nude' photo

Pakistani actress Veena Malik is suing an Indian men's magazine over a nude photoshoot, saying it was doctored, her lawyer has told the BBC.

Ms Malik felt "cheated and duped" by FHM India, which "tampered" with the photoshoot, Ayaz Bilawala said.

FHM India has been asked to withdraw all copies from newsstands and pay $2m in damages, he said.

Editor Kabeer Sharma told the BBC the claims were false and that he had video to prove the shoot's authenticity.

'Loss of reputation'

The actress is shown sporting the initials ISI on her arm. The photos for the December issue have caused a sensation in Pakistan for both the nudity and the initials of Pakistan's controversial Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency.

"Ms Malik has been cheated and duped. She had a photoshoot, but there was no nudity. She had some clothes on," Mr Bilawala told the BBC.

"In the photos that were shown to her [for approval] she had her clothes on.

"She has suffered from a loss of reputation and we are demanding damages and withdrawal of the magazine from newsstands," he said.

The legal notice says FHM India "intentionally induced our client to take photographs with clothes on and have subsequently tampered with and/or morphed the photographs with a deliberate intent to cheat our client".

FHM's editor confirmed to the BBC that it had received the legal notice.

"We have seen the notice and forwarded it to our legal department for appropriate action," Mr Sharma said.

"All the allegations are false and we are looking at various options, including filing a countersuit," he said.

After the controversy broke, Mr Sharma told the BBC that the idea to have ISI written on her arm was his and it was Veena Malik's idea to have it in block letters.

He said that the image was intended to be playful, saying that: "In India we joke about this... if anything goes wrong... we say the ISI must be behind this."

The ISI has been in the headlines in recent months after senior US officials accused it of supporting militants based in Pakistan's tribal areas who target Western troops in Afghanistan.

In September the most senior US military officer Adm Mike Mullen said that the Haqqani militant network "acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency".

Pakistan has vehemently denied such allegations.

The actress has been at the centre of controversy before.

She caused outrage among conservative circles in Pakistan for appearing on the Indian reality show Bigg Boss in 2010. She hit the headlines again in March this year by challenging the views of a Pakistani cleric on television.