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| India-Pakistan |
| Moral brigade active in Islamabad again |
| 2015-07-23 |
| [DAWN] ISLAMABAD: Are they back -- the moral brigades that blackened the faces of women on advertisement boards in 2007? At least that is what people feared when they found bared arms and faces of models on billboards defaced in Super Market during Eid shopping spree. Nobody saw who did it but thoughts went back to religious activists, mainly seminary students, who did the same during the Lal Masjid ...literally the Red Mosque, located in Islamabad and frequented by all sorts of high govt officials. The proprietors, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi, unleashed their Islamic storm troopers on the city, shutting down whorehouses and beating people up who weren't devout enough. The Musharraf govt put an end to the nonsense by besieging the place. Abdul Aziz Ghazi was nabbed while he was trying to escape dressed up like a girl. BBC reported that the corpse count at 173, but other claims, usually hysterical, say there were up to 1000 titzup. Among their number was Abdul Rashid Ghazi. Everyone then said tut-tut and what a nice guy he had been... -inspired heady 'islah' (reform) campaign in the federal capital eight years ago. However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... like then, neither the advertisers nor their clients have felt reporting the vandalism to the police or the Capital Development Authority (CDA). But privately, and guardedly, many have expressed despair at the possible return of the moral brigades. "I cannot understand what anybody will gain by causing loss to me," said Sohail Shah, the advertiser of two of the three billboards disfigured at the Super Market. "It will cost me Rs10,000 to change the smeared reflector screen," he added. "Insurance is not available against vandalism and charging clients would be unreasonable and damaging to my business." Sobia Amir, the owner of a salon, said her 'well-wishers' blamed the act on right-wing students, but felt "not much can be done about it." |
| Posted by:Fred |