The villain, the heroine and the director
Reported in Express (July 3, 2014), the director of cricketer Muhammad Asif’s upcoming movie was sacked after he declined a request by the actor playing the villain to shoot two songs featuring him and the heroine. The actor playing the villain has now been made the director.
My way or highway!
Reported in Jang (July 3, 2014), two excise officers in the Motor Vehicle Registration Authority ended up fighting with each other (galiyon ka tabadla aur hatha pai) when one of them denied with objections a registration application by a relative of the other.
Airport attacks scare plane lessors away
According to Express (July 4, 2014), four international airlines that had expressed interest in leasing aircraft to PIA in June declined to go ahead after the terrorist attack on Karachi Airport and the gun attack on a flight landing at Peshawar Airport.
Men sold dead cows to hotels for meat
Reported in Dunya (July 5, 2014), after Lahore police stopped a pickup truck carrying a dead cow and questioned the owner and driver of the vehicle, they revealed that they sold dead animals to hotels and restaurants for meat. Police arrested the two men, seized their vehicle and are searching for their accomplices.
Tahirul Qadri was all that was left for Chaudhry Shujaat
According to Jang (July 5, 2014), Maulana Fazlur Rehman told reporters that when Chaudhry Shujaat came to him with a delegation asking for support for his protest movement, he said the PTI won in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the 2013 elections, the PPP won Sindh, ethnic parties won Balochistan, and the PML-N won Punjab and the federal government, and all that was left for me was Tahirul Qadri (mairay hissay main mehez ye Qadri aya hai).
Five wives, no sustenance
Reported in Dunya (July 6, 2014), five wives of a Muzaffargarh resident went to a police station to complain that he was not paying them sustenance (kharcha na milnay par). He was called to the police station and held in the lock up until he promised to give them sustenance.
Fazlullah is either in India, or in Indian consulate
According to Dunya (July 6, 2014), 15 Taliban leaders who were orchestrating terrorist attacks in Pakistan from Afghanistan have found a sanctuary in the border areas of India where they are being looked after by Indian spy agencies. If Mullah Fazlullah is not in India, he must be in an Indian consulate in Afghanistan.
Police torture salesman for free burgers
Reported in Nawa-e-Waqt (July 6, 2014), when a salesman at a burger shop in Lahore asked police to pay for their food, they locked him up in a room and tortured him.
In Waziristan, peace will return but romance will not
Quoted in Nawa-e-Waqt (July 7, 2014), poet Zohaib Wazir, who is among the people displaced from North Waziristan, says the military operation will restore peace in the area, but its romance will never return. When I recite romantic poetry to the people of Waziristan, they take it as an insult. Things have changed since 2001, and now people only like poetry about war and violence.
Politicians’ children fail Aitchison admission test
Reported in Express (July 8, 2014), the prime minister’s nephew and the grandsons of Shahbaz Sharif, Chaudhry Shujaat and Salmaan Taseer were among 25 children related to influential people who failed the admission test for the prestigious Aitchison College of Lahore. This happened because the school has abolished a quota system that had been in place for the last 55 years.
Pervez Musharraf worker fails to flee from court
According to Jang (July 8, 2014), after a court denied bail to an activist belonging to Pervez Musharraf’s Awami Muslim League upon being told he was a wanted suspect accused of 8 murders, his friends attacked the police in a bid to help him flee. But people accompanying the complainant caught him before he could run.
Tahirul Qadri must stay alive and entertain
According to Nawa-e-Waqt (July 9, 2014), when Tahirul Qadri told reporters in a meeting that he was ready to die for his cause (shahadat qabool karnay ko tayyar hoon), one of them said he should not die because then who else would entertain people (shughal mela kon lagaye ga?). Qadri laughed and said there would be others after him.