PPP politician and prominent TV personality Sharmila Faruqi has once again raised her concerns over the content being presented in Pakistani television drama serial.
The politician has expressed her reservation over the trend of normalizing violence against women in various Pakistani TV serials.
Faruqi has asked the question that why can't our dramas portray a healthy conversation between husband and wife instead of physical abuse?
Taking too her Instagram handle, the politician shared a reference of domestic violence portrayal in drama serial as she criticized a scene from the latest episode of drama Khuda Aur Muhabbat 3, which stars prominent actors including Iqra Aziz, Feroze Khan and others.
She posted a still from the drama’s latest episode, in which actor Sohail Sameer's character Nazim Shah is seen slapping his wife Sahiba, played by Sunita Marshall. In the caption of the post, Faruqi wrote, "Why can’t our dramas show a husband having a normal conversation with his wife?"
"Why do our women have to be resorted violence and physical abuse at the drop of a hat? What you show in these dramas is what most of our people will emulate. In the last episode of Khuda Aur Muhabbat, Nazim Shah slaps his wife Sahiba while questioning her about her visit to the mazaar with Mahi (played by Iqra Aziz)," she added.
"This could have been a very normal conversation between the couple but unfortunately our writers revel in the fact that once a man is angry he will resort to violence towards the women in his life," she added. "Can we show some decent man who do believe in respecting a woman?"
Faruqi has raised this concern before in entertainment industry, when she called out actor Mirza Gohar Rasheed for his views on domestic violence after he implied that oppression is a choice after the slap scene in Laapata went viral.
Faruqi pointed out that women face oppression not because they choose to but because "they don't have the choice to hit back or leave."
Social media influencer Kanwal Ahmed of Soul Sisters also raised a similar concern via her tweet. “Can Pakistani dramas not get through the story without slapping women on screen?” she tweeted.