ISLAMABAD: A story of love, hatred and betrayal, Pakistan’s most popular as well as most controversial drama serial of today, ‘Meray Pas Tum Ho’, came to an end on Saturday leaving behind praise, criticism and controversies.
The five-month journey concluded on Saturday evening when the last episode aired on a private TV channel and viewers were glued to their screens to learn how the star-studded story would conclude in its last episode.
The popularity of the drama serial that is written in the backdrop of a pretty woman who leaves her poor husband for a rich man and thus faces backlash can be judged by the fact that local cinemas screened the two-hour long finale for Rs800 (Dh19) and most of the theatres were booked in advance days ahead exhibition of the last episode.
The writer of the play, Khalilur Rehman Qamar, has also come under severe criticism by women rights activists for “belittling women” and portraying them as “faithless creatures”.
Rights activists called the writer a misogynist and Kinnaird College University of Lahore dropped a session with Khalilur Rehman Qamar for his ‘negative’ remarks and for showing disrespect to women in the play.
According to a drama critic Danial Shah, ‘Meray Pas Tum Ho’ attained unprecedented fame for its breaking from the run-of-the-mill stories that portray man as disloyal, cruel person and woman a good, faithful creature.
On the contrary, in Meray pas tum Ho, we see a pretty girl Mehwish (Ayeza Khan) in a negative character ditching her husband Danish (Humayun Saeed) for a filthy rich man Shehwaar (Adnan Siddiqui).
“Breaking from the mainstream is something that makes the drama popular,” said Shah.
A petition was also filed in a civil court of Lahore requesting to stop exhibition of the last episode.
The petitioner, Maham Jamshed, also filed a petition through her counsel Majid Chaudhry that women as a whole had been ridiculed and shown as a disrespected segment of society in the drama.
Her counsel argued before the court that the Constitution did not allow character assassination of any segment of society.
However counsel for the production team, Advocates Mian Irfan Akram and Waqas Ahmad Aziz argued that the drama was made to discourage “honour” killings and to reform society.
The judge Naila Ayub after hearing the two sides refused to stay the last episode of drama serial saying the censor board had cleared the drama serial and all episodes of the drama had been broadcast on television.
She noted, prima facie no good case of interim injunction was made out at this stage since there was no element, which could show that the drama was inappropriate for society.
