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Actors 'advised' to change their names
Female actors have been advised by a vigilance and monitoring committee headed by Literacy Executive District Officer (EDO) Prof Sharif Nishtar to not use names such as Muhammad, Ali or Hussain as surnames because they failed to maintain the names' 'sanctity'. "I just advised female actors who work in theatres because they perform objectionable dances, use 'double meaning dialogue' and abuse each other," said Prof Nishtar on Sunday. "I am not an authority to force the actors to change their names. I just advised them to do so like other artists of the subcontinent such as Chanda, Shamsa, Ruby and Moon etc," he added.

Female actors Neha Ali and Aneela Ali said they were using the names given to them by their parents and they were not their stage or film names. Both actors also said that they respected the above-mentioned names as much as any other Muslim did. However, they said that they had been persuaded to use stage names such as film actors Santosh Kumar, Darpan, Shamim Ara, Deeba, Rozina and Dileep Kumar. Tension has surfaced between the Multan district administration and producers and directors of theatre plays on the issue of dances, obscenity, vulgarity, nudity and objectionable dialogue. The district administration had arrested more than 50 male and female actors and all theatres had been closed for 10 days, which caused a large financial loss to producers as well as actors and a substantial revenue deficit generally.
Posted by: Fred 2005-01-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=53273