Call to stop attacks on CD shops
PESHAWAR, Aug 6: The Telefilm Makers Association has urged the local Taliban to stop attacking CD shops in the province and said that people in the business were not involved in any anti-Islam activity.
“We too are Muslims and they (Taliban) need to understand that this is our business. We make films on social issues that are watched by families. Businessmen have been in constant fear because of recent bomb attacks on CD shops,” Sher Dil Khan, president of the association, said.
He invited militants to watch the telefilms before deciding to bomb their shops.
An estimated 50 CD shops have come under attacks recently in Tank, Swat, Mardan, Peshawar, Kohat and other districts of the province.
A ban on theatres in Nishtar Hall is still in place and the culture of music parties at wedding ceremonies is also on the decline.
The livelihood of a large number of people in the city is dependent on telefilms. Around 26 producers release as many telefilms in a month.
“We produced about 5,000 films in the last three years that were sold at the 250 CD outlets in the city,” the president said.
He claimed that people were now turning to the local telefilms instead of watching Indian movies.
“Unlike Pushto films that produced only two Pushto-speaking heroines during 60 years of its existence, we have 40 Pakhtun heroines against 60 actors,” he added.
“Each CD is available for Rs35 that can be afforded by an average common person,” he said, adding that apart from Peshawar, their telefilms have a market in Karachi, Quetta, Swat, Jalalabad, Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif. We also make joint telefilms with Afghan actors, he said.
Office bearers of the association said that they had asked the provincial chief minister to implement the copyright laws, but they were told that it was a federal matter.
Mr Khan regretted that the cable operators were screening latest telefilms without their permission which was affecting their CD sales.
Source: Dawn
Date:8/7/2007
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