KARACHI: An axe-wielding mob chases a terrified group; a daring Pakistani television drama has for the first time tackled the deeply sensitive issue of the dozens murdered for alleged blasphemy.
Islam is the official religion in Muslim-majority Pakistan, and accusations of insulting religious sentiments can easily incite mob violence.
Blasphemy is an incendiary charge, and the issue is rarely discussed by major media broadcasters due to security concerns.
But producer Sultana Siddiqui challenged that with an 11-part television drama, which has earned praise since it began airing in December for handling a taboo topic with sensitivity.
“This issue has not been raised before because of fear,” Siddiqui, founder of the Hum Network media company, told AFP.

Her drama “Tan Man Neelo Neel,” or “Bruises on Body and Soul,” tells the stories of people in a small Pakistani town, and has generated millions of views and widespread praise on social media.
“I took the risk in a careful manner,” she said. “That’s why people appreciated it.”

In the drama, the case of blasphemy centers around a character who falsely claims a dance performance takes place in a mosque, rather than the abandoned mansion it happened in.
That storyline of false allegations is an echo of reality.
Pakistan’s independent Human Rights Commission, in a report last month, described the “impunity for perpetrators of hate and violence.”
It detailed cases of people killed, and followers and places of worship of Pakistan’s minority religions, including Christians and Hindus, being attacked over false claims.
“Law enforcement... have often failed to rescue blasphemy suspects from vigilante violence,” the commission said.
“A careful examination of various blasphemy allegations shows that these are invariably based on fabrications, malicious disinformation and fake news.”
Siddiqui said she was motivated by a 2017 case in the city of Mardan when a mob beat 23-year-old journalism student Mashal Khan to death after accusing him of posting blasphemous content online.
“I couldn’t sleep after hearing Mashal’s mother say that ‘not a single bone in his body was left unbroken — even his finger bones were fractured,’” she said.
“I kept wondering: How brutally must they have beaten him?“

Mohammad Iqbal, the murdered student’s father, said that the producer had chosen the “right topic” and had “honored his son.”
“We, those most affected, have rarely spoken about it publicly,” he told AFP.
“At last, this conversation is happening on television.”
Siddiqui said she had long wanted to address the issue and had been carefully collaborating with fellow directors and writers to address the subject matter appropriately.
“I, too, fear extremists who might not like me and could harm me,” she said.
“However, I believe we should address these issues with them in a respectful manner.”
Siddiqui said it was her “duty to educate people” and “raise awareness about crucial social issues” that impact society.

Pakistani dramas boast a massive viewership and their popularity serves as a powerful vehicle for social change.
A Gallup survey conducted in October 2023 suggested that two-fifths of the country watch dramas.
“We should have spoken about such issues much earlier,” said Mustafa Afridi, the writer of the show.
“If we had, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this situation today, perhaps our children wouldn’t be dying.”
Pakistan’s media industry has been wary of the topic — and fallen foul in the past of accusations of creating blasphemous content.
The release of the 2019 award-winning film “Zindagi Tamasha,” or “Circus of Life,” was halted after the Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) objected to its portrayal of a cleric they deemed “blasphemous.”
In 2020, a music video shot at Lahore’s Wazir Khan mosque sparked furious protests after singer Bilal Saeed was filmed dancing with actor Saba Qamar.
Police filed a case against them, and they apologized — and were eventually acquitted two years later.
Arafat Mazhar, the director of the Alliance Against Blasphemy Politics group, said Siddiqui’s show had “sparked a viral critique of blasphemy-related mob violence.”
He called the reaction “unprecedented.”
“It wasn’t just that people were watching a drama about mob violence — it was that the conversation centered on mob violence at such a large scale for the first time,” he told AFP.
“The battle against blasphemy violence is not just about speaking out against mob killings. It is about challenging the structures that create and sustain them.”

ISLAMABAD: On a recent Ramadan night, Mamoon Sabri, 27, slipped into a tracksuit an hour after the iftar meal and headed to his new favorite getaway: a padel court.

Racket in hand, he walked onto the artificial turf at The Pad, Islamabad’s first padel club, as a group of his friends also arrived. Soon they began hitting forehands and backhands across the net, slamming the ball off the back wall, scooping it over the net and teasing each other with shots close to the wall — and so went on an hour-and-a-half long game of padel.

The racket sport, a mix of tennis and squash that is the fastest-growing sport in the world, is also gaining traction in Pakistan, especially in Ramadan, with its culture of sports and physical activities in parks, streets, and sports grounds after iftar and until the pre-dawn suhoor meal, fostering a sense of community and promoting health at the same time. 

At The Pad and other padel courts in the Pakistani capital, padel games are offering people both a fun-filled pastime and an opportunity to socialize and exercise in the hours between iftar and suhoor. A Ramadan tournament is taking place at The Pad currently, with more than 50 teams participating in all-girls, mixed doubles and advanced team categories. 

As of 2024, there are approximately 30 million amateur padel players worldwide, with the sport, founded in Mexico in the 1960s, now played in over 130 countries, according to the International Padel Federation.

“Padel is a great time and Ramadan is always a great time for sports in Islamabad anyway because everyone wants to play, everyone wants to stay awake till sehri [suhoor] one way or the other,” Sabri, a sports broadcaster and consultant, told Arab News shortly after winning a men’s doubles game.

Mustafa Mirza, a co-founder of The Pad, said the club was fostering an atmosphere of camaraderie in Ramadan.

“Padel is a social hub and it is linked more with the lifestyle,” Mirza said. “We have an excellent response in Ramadan. We feel that the people who were not familiar with padel, because they ventured out in Ramadan and they found this sport to be so challenging and rigorous, and then they have taken part in it.”

Indeed, from dedicated sports clubs to pop-up facilities in upscale neighborhoods, there is a surge in courts and players this Ramadan, with families, friends, and even corporate groups gathering late into the night and enjoying the sport’s social nature. Many players said they would cap off their matches with post-game hangouts at nearby cafés and restaurants where they could enjoy suhoor in groups. 

Mahnoor Khan, a 27-year-old employee at a telecom company, said she had come to the courts for the first time with her husband and a group of friends, describing padel as a “very good sport for family and friends.”

“In Islamabad you don’t have a lot of options other than dining out, so this is the very first time that they have introduced something that is other than dining out for socializing,” she told Arab News. “You have a good game, and you go out after iftar or whenever … I think the concept is now spreading really fast.”

Zainab Ameen, who manages The Pad club with her husband, another co-founder Ameen-ud-Din Hafeez, said though the club had only launched a few months ago, the response was “tremendous.”

“We never thought that we will get this kind of response. We just started with two courts and when we got a very good response, we opened two more. And now, we are going to open a futsol [arena],” she told Arab News.

What makes padel particularly appealing during Ramadan is that as a low-impact sport, padel lets one enjoy exercising without any hard strain on the muscles, thus serving as an effective means of staying fit without feeling exceedingly overwhelmed in Ramadan.

“It’s a very low skill floor for the game to play. So, anyone who is starting off will have a good time because they are going to feel like, ‘Wow, what a shot, I am a machine’,” Sabri said. 

“But then there is also a very good skill ceiling … It’s a very interesting mixture in a way most racket sports are.”