You know the ones — people scrambling and pushing each other in their rush to grab a slice or three, yelling and shouting and causing all sorts of uproar on social media where people label them “ignorant” and “the reason why Pakistan isn’t progressing”.

Shahnawaz isn’t buying this criticism of uneducated people being the cause of their own ignorance. “They’re ignorant and uneducated because they were never taught anything. They weren’t given any opportunities. They didn’t grow up in Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad, or Sialkot, Gujranwala or Faisalabad. They are coming from villages,” he said in a video shared to his Instagram account on August 14.

“Someone told you what happened on August 14, right? You weren’t born knowing what happened,” he addressed his followers. “Someone told you not to throw trash outside, even though you still do, I know. Someone told you not to attack cakes, because you get cake at home. You’ve tried cake before. If you were to see some Mano Salwa [divine food] somewhere and you didn’t know if you’d get any or if you’d ever get to have any in your life, you would attack it too,” he said.

Poverty in Pakistan surged by seven per cent, pushing approximately 27 million additional people into financial distress over the last six years and bringing the total number of the impoverished population of the country to 70 million, according to this year’s Economic Survey. Pakistan measures poverty based on the cost of basic needs approach, in which the poverty line represents the minimum expenditure required to meet essential food and non-food needs. That means 70 million people definitely don’t have the means to buy and eat cake.

“These things don’t happen all at once, it takes effort, and our governments, our leaders and we, the privileged class, have worked on it for the past 75 years to keep people like this,” Shahnawaz contended. “

“We also live in a bubble.” He referenced a video by a white content creator who made three videos with brands talking about how Pakistan is so great. “And it is great — for us. For the privileged class. It’s great for us, it’s great for foreigners. But go out and look at the main streets, people are out. That is the real Pakistan,” he said.

“You’re saying Pakistan has been ruined because of them, no, it’s been ruined because of us. We have the education, we have the political power, we have the voice, we have the platform, we have the ability to debate, but we don’t do it. If someone comes and speaks against Pakistan we say, ‘no, no, show only positive side’, ‘why always talk negative’, or other nonsense like that,” he said.

“Anyway, happy Independence to everyone. Before 1947, you didn’t have a political say, you couldn’t decide foreign policy, you paid tax that wasnt spent on you, education wasn’t that great, people used to say don’t educate your children, don’t give them a western education, the people wanting a western education for their kids would be abused, now things are very different, because we are free,” the actor said.

“Before, we feared there was a majority religion that would dominate us, they would oppress us, now, there’s no such thing, no majority religion is oppressing another. So yeah, we are free, and for that, happy Independence Day, guys.”

Of a total of 372 awards, 54 will be presented for contributions to the arts, 29 for literature and nine for sports. Notable awardees from the list include actors Sania Saeed, Maria Wasti and Mahmood Aslam; musicians Shiraz Uppal and Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan (Xulfi) and TV host Shafat Ali.

The list of award recipients is as follows:

Arts

Hilal-i-Imtiaz

Sultana Siddiqi - Production

Sitara-i-Imtiaz

Bilqees Bano (Nisho Begum) - Acting

Iftikhar Ahmed Thakur - Acting

Syed Fasih Uddin Soharwardhy - Naat khawani

Shakir Hussain - Compering

Taranam Naz - Singing

Saira John Peter - Opera singing

Abida Ehsan - Art education, art history and painting

Raja Changez Sultan - Painting

Muhammad Naeem Tahir - Theatre

Bashir Ahmed - Painting

President’s Award for Pride of Performance

Mahmood Aslam - Acting

Sarfraz Hussain Ansari - Acting and direction

M Ehtesham Warsi (M Warsi) - Acting

Arshad Hussain - Acting

Ustad Mazhar Umrao Bundu Khan - Sarangi

Ghazala Kaifi - Acting

Khawaja Saleem Ahmad - Acting and directing

Shazma Haleem - Acting

Rafia Bano - Singing

Jahangir Iqbal (Ustad Ejaz Tawakal Khan) - Classical music

Shaukat Hussain Samrat (Pappu Samrat) - Choreography

Aftab Zafar - Painting and illustration

Tayyeba Aziz - Painting and sculpting

Aleem Dad Khan - Visual Arts

Allah Jurio - Boreendo making

Sheikh Muhammad Yousaf Arts - Kashmiri embroidery

Ameer Buksh - Block printing

Nasir Shahzad - Painting

Nadeem Salamat - Qawwali

Shahbaz Ali - Harmonium

Syeda Maria Wasti - Acting

Sania Saeed - Acting

Gulshan Ara Syed - Singing

Talib Hussain Dard - Music

Mushtaq Shifai - Singing

Muhammad Imran Qureshi - Painting

Zohaib Hassan - Sarangi

Hidayat Ullah Khan - Painting and sculpting

Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan (Xulfi) - Music

Syed Wahab Hussain Shah - Choreography

Tangha-i-Imtiaz

Muhammad Noor Ul Hassan Malik Acting and anchoring

Shafat Ali - Hosting

Shiraz Uppal - Singing and music composition

Jabbar Abbas - Singing

Ali Saad - Painting

Muhammad Ramzan - Khussa making

Jahangir Khan - Shoemaking

Ghulam Haider - Sculpting and stone carving

Rozi Khan - Balochi chawat making

Akhtar Qureshi - Naat khawani

Khan Muhammad Chachar - Naat khawani

Hafiz Marghoob Ahmed Hamdani - Naat khawani

Rubina Kazmi - Fashion design

Literature

Nishan-i-Imtiaz

Asad Muhammad Khan - Playwriting and poetry

Hilal-i-Imtiaz

Ejaz Rahim - Poetry

Muhammad Khurshid Ul Hasan Rizvi - Poetry

Sitara-i-Imtiaz

Muhammad Shakeel Adilzada - Short story writing

Prof Brigadier (retd) Waheed Uz Zaman Tariq - Iqbal Studies

Maqsood Hussain Jafri - Poetry

Riaz ul Haq Tahir (Riaz Majeed) - Naat writing

Muhammad Hafeez Khan - Writing

Prof Dr Muhammad Saleem Mazhar - Writings on sufism, historiography and culture

Hashim Nadeem - Playwriting and novel writing

Syed Ghulam Abbas (Muhsin Naqvi) - Poetry

President’s Award for Pride of Performance

Dr Shahida Shaheen - Writing and poetry

Ali Muhammad Farshi - Poetry

Aslam Javed - Poetry

Muhammad Muti-Ur-Rehman Mumtaz (Rehman Faris) - Poetry

Syed Farid Ullah Shah Hassas - Writing

Shafqat Ullah Mushtaq - Poetry and writing

Nizakat Kalsoom (Kalsoom Zeb) - Writing and poetry

Syed Wasi Ahmad Fatmi - Literature

Tamgha-i-Imtiaz

Farida Hafeez - Writing

Agha Gul (Agha Anwar Gul) - Short story and novel writing

Noor Khan Muhammad Hasni - Writing

Khalid Fateh Muhammad - Writing and translation

Haleem Qureshi (Abdul Haleem) - Poetry

Manzoom Ali - Literature

Sherbaz Ali Khan Barcha - Literature

Muhammad Siddique G Memon - History and archaeology

Prof Dr Haroon-ur-Rasheed Tabassum - Literature

Qaiser Abbas Sabir - Novel and travelogue writing

Sports

Sitara-i-Imtiaz

Atta Mohammad Kakar - Senior boxing coach

Dr Waseem A Tai - Yoga

President’s Award for Pride of Performance

Bashir Bhola - Wrestling

Kishmala Talat - Shooting

Noor Zaman - Squash

Sultan Muhammad Golden - Ramp jump

Muhammad Waseem - Boxing

Sadiq Muhammad - Cricket

Tamgha-i-Imtiaz

Faiqa Riaz - Athletics

In a reel posted to her Instagram account, Robin said she loved her country, but that didn’t mean she had to love its system.

“And while today is a day of celebration, with the heartbreaking news we’re seeing about children being sexually harassed and abused, I want to use this moment to share something really, really important,” she said.

The model had three pieces of advice for any parent to try and protect their kids from being sexually abused.

The first was to not trust someone with their child just because they’re family. She asked parents to keep track of who has access to their children, boys and girls alike.

The second piece of advice was to teach kids about “body boundaries” and where it was okay for other people to touch them. “Teach them that they have the right to say no, even to an adult and never force them to hug, kiss, [sit with], or show affection to anyone.”

The last point, which Robin said was the most important, was to create a safe space for children to talk about these things and form a parent-child relationship where they can talk to you if they feel uncomfortable.

She told parents not to overlook any behavioural changes in their children, especially if they “see them being uncomfortable or unsafe around someone”.

The model said parents should implement these steps and tell others so that we can all move towards making “a country where every child feels safe, free, heard and protected”.

Robin’s message comes during a year marred by horrific incidents of violence and abuse against children in Pakistan. The first half of the year saw over 1,900 cases of child abuse reported in the country.

On August 4, police in Karachi registered a complaint from the father of a young girl who went out to buy something with a relative and returned unconscious, having been raped. The relative — a 17-year-old boy — was arrested the next day.

On June 23, two more gruesome cases shook the country. One was from Karachi, where the body of a three-year-old girl was found at her parents’ doorstep after she was violently raped, according to the police.

The other case was from Sargodha, where a seven-year-old girl was found dead, with signs of struggle on her body. Police said her killers likely attempted to rape her and four suspects were arrested.

According to a complaint filed in a court in Delaware on Thursday, the trio “falsely represented” the company to two groups of investors who claim they put almost $1.2 million into the company, TMZ reported.

Founded in 2021, Wondermind’s website says it gives its audience “easy, doable ways to put your mental fitness first every day”. Gomez is listed as a co-founder while Teefey is listed as CEO; Pierson left the company in 2023 after reported disagreements with Teefey.

The three are being sued for securities fraud, common law fraud, breach of contract and other claims, with plaintiffs alleging that “for three years, while the company quietly collapsed around them, not one of its founders, officers, or directors said a word to the investors whose money was funding the collapse”.

Their lawsuit says the complainants were led to believe Wondermind had partnerships with companies such as JP Morgan along with “advertising deals, celebrity cover stories, and a groundbreaking app”.

“The partnerships did not exist. The initiatives never materialised. The app was never built,” the investors alleged.

The investors were alerted of the company’s troubles by a report published in September by The Cut, which detailed internal power struggles, Teefey’s “gross mismanagement” of the company and Gomez’s “abject dereliction of her duties” and “her active efforts to distance herself from it”, the complaint said.

Investors say they sent an email to Teefey in November asking for their investment to be returned. Teefey sent an email saying she would respond in 10 days’ time, but “never substantively responded to the notice”.

In April, she responded to another notice saying she “thought we returned your investment” and said this was a matter for “Selena’s legal team” when pushed further on the matter.

Eventually, Teefey said Wondermind had created an escrow account to assist in returning the investment. However, according to the complaint, “when the plaintiffs repeatedly followed up with Teefey to obtain details about that purported escrow account, Teefey disappeared”.

According to the investors, there was no escrow account and this was a continuation of “years-long scheme of deceit” carried out by Gomez, Teefey and Pierson.

The plaintiffs are seeking the return of their initial investment, as well as damages and legal fees.

In his post on Tuesday, Alvi claimed his words had been twisted and that what people on social media chose to focus on were not his views, but those of “the majority of men in our society”.

“This has nothing to do with my views on women,” he explained.

The filmmaker said he believed in empowering and supporting strong and confident women, which reflected in how he treated his wife and daughter.

He said he provided his wife “with all the household help she needs” and respected everything she had done for him.

Alvi came under fire for his statements made during a programme themed around marital disputes.

A caller to the show complained that her husband used his phone excessively after work and failed to pay attention to her at home. In response, host Nida Yasir quipped that when her husband is too engrossed in his phone, she just goes into another room and sends him a voice message with whatever it was she needed to tell him.

Alvi — after jokingly suggesting that her husband might be cheating on her — told the woman she should do something to make her husband pay attention to her, like making him a good meal.

Actor Leyla Zuberi, who was sitting next to him, suggested she should dress up and do make-up before her husband comes home, as that’s what her mother used to do.

Actor Fahima Awan, who was also on the show, said she would “side with the men here” and suggested that the woman’s husband may be in no mood to chat after a long day at work. She said maybe reading more and knowing more about the world would help the caller engage her spouse in a more intellectually stimulating conversation.

Later, as the host and the other guests were discussing the significance of physical and intellectual grooming, Alvi chimed in saying a husband may not be thrilled to talk to his wife if “he comes home and she’s smelling of ginger and garlic”.

He said this was in contrast to the women he interacts with in the workplace who “are wearing perfume as they work alongside him”.

Responding to the backlash over the above statement, Alvi on Tuesday said: “Shame on people who try to tarnish one’s reputation just for views.”

Now, Sanam Saeed has stepped up to be Saleem’s knight in shining armour and defend her colleague from the wrath of trolls. In an Instagram story on Monday, she called the situation “unsettling”.

Saeed said it was “very lame to see everyone so obsessed over an actor’s accent” and called it “downright mean and inconsiderate of someone’s feelings” for people to be bashing Saleem the way they are.

For context, Saleem plays Zaryab, the carefree younger daughter of a well-to-do family, in Dar-e-Nijaat. Her character, who has been educated in elite schools and is now considering going to the US for her education, is shown primarily speaking in English with her sister, her friends and her boyfriend Zamil (Nameer Khan).

What fans found strange in Saleem’s portrayal was her accent, which many said didn’t fit the character she was portraying.

Actors are known for their craft and the craft lies in portraying character well enough for them to be believable. Patrons of any art form are known to express their opinion when they don’t like something and it seems the patrons of Pakistani dramas have a lot to say about Saleem’s accent.

While we understand that fans would like every aspect of the drama to be believable, there is such a thing as taking criticism too far, and that’s what Saeed is talking about.

The PR coordinator, hovering nearby with a tray of snacks, gets up and shuts it. Shuja waves at the food. “Eat, please,” he insists. He won’t touch it himself, though. Over the next 90 minutes, it becomes clear that this isn’t a one-off gesture. He always makes sure everyone else goes before him.

Shuja, 31, has spent the last two years playing men who are hard to love. There was the evil playboy in Ae Ishq-i-Junoon (AIIJ), the traumatised mountain villager in Khaie and the young man dealing with male assault in Tann Mann Neelo Neel (TMNN).

This year, ARY Digital’s Dr Bahu, directed by Mehreen Jabbar and written by Sanam Mehdi Zaryab, made him something we rarely get to see on Pakistani television: a heartthrob people could fall for without worrying. It didn’t last long, though, because in the episode that was aired after this interview, Salman Shahnawaz, the character Shuja plays, turned kind of villainish.

It’s easy to forget that the confidence of the actor with four overlapping hit projects — Ae Ishq-i-Junoon, Tann Mann Neelo Neel, Khaie and now Dr Bahu — is fairly new. Before it, there was a slew of rejections and typecasting and a feeling he was in Disneyland. So why does he still feel uncomfortable with fame and want to delete his Instagram?

Salman is the black sheep in a family of doctors, married off to Sania, an ambitious young physician (Kubra Khan). A deleted scene from Episode 10, which showed Salman helping Sania fix her sari, went viral in April. And once again the internet lost its head over a man being gentle on television.

“Salman has a lot of traumas,” he says, sounding a little tired of how the internet has distilled his character into one word. “I keep hearing people call him a green flag. It’s not that simple. He’s not a red flag either. He’s just human.”

He lists what he thinks people have missed about his character. That Salman lost his business two or three times before the show began. He had a panic attack. That his dislike of hospitals stems from the fact that his father spent years pushing him towards medicine and never forgave him for failing at it.

“He’s flawed.” Shuja then smiles as he adds, “But he’s there for his wife and mother. Nobody’s asking how someone is supposed to turn out fine after all that.”

Building a character

In listing these details, Shuja is also revealing his acting process. He doesn’t act only by instinct. Instead, he arrives on the set with a long list of specific questions. What are this character’s childhood traumas? How does he eat? How does he talk? Is this the first time he’s worn this suit?

“Even regarding an outfit, I’ll ask the director if he thinks he’s wearing this for the first time,” he says. “Dramas are a six-to-eight-month project. The more questions you ask, the better.”

He traces the habit to Khaie, which got him noticed before Dr Bahu. “That’s where I realised, okay. Keep your room for errors small, Shuja. Ask good questions if you want a real career.”

The questions stem from curiosity, but he admits they can be dangerous. After AIIJ, he met Mehreen for their first meeting for Dr Bahu and found that he was still struggling to look women in the eye. The playboy he’d just finished playing hadn’t let go of him and he was avoiding being misread.

“I’m unable to meet you in the eyes,” he told Mehreen, “so please don’t mistake it for not listening.” He still thinks he could play a better villain than the one in AIIJ. That character, Shehroz, came with a mullet and an actual piercing, both of which he kept until the drama wrapped up. “After that I needed to be Shuja again,” he says, as if putting on another costume.

Salman’s role almost went to someone else because Shuja nearly turned it down. In his first meeting with Mehreen, he says, he kept suggesting other actors. He wasn’t sure he understood Salman. “I wasn’t able to click with it,” he recalls.

Mehreen pushed back. He mentioned to her that he’d grown up mostly around women, his mother and two sisters, and knew which dramas they watched and what they talked about. She told him that was exactly why he needed to play Salman.

It’s worth remembering how recent Shuja’s confidence is. Before Khaie and before the ad that Fahad Mustafa happened to see, which got him cast in Pyar Deewangi Hai opposite Neelam Munir, Shuja spent nearly two years being turned away at casting calls over his teeth. He got them fixed in his 20s and took a marketing job handing out water plant brochures door to door because his mother told him to go and feel what real work was like.

He collected small humiliations during that time and talks about his early 20s the way people talk about a difficult training period.

He still describes himself, half-joking, as a boy who used to watch dramas, wondering whether he’d ever get to play Faysal Quraishi’s son or Sheheryar Munawar’s brother. He is still something of a fanboy and gets visibly overwhelmed recalling the first time he met actor Javed Sheikh. He remembers doing a commercial with Shaan Shahid, thinking to himself in disbelief that he was finally standing next to Pakistan’s action hero. He calls the industry his Disneyland.

The cost of fame

Ask him about fame and he brings up a worry right away. “It’s very hard to go out with your family,” he says. Someone is always taking a picture, or worse, not taking one and just watching him.

He brings up a recent article. It paired a badass photo of him wearing sunglasses, hand in his pocket, with a quote he’d given about not being the best-looking man in the industry. Without context, the quote came across as arrogant. Mehreen texted him asking, “Why would you say that?”

“Negativity attracts attention,” laments Shuja Asad. He sounds tired by the pattern he’s describing and is still figuring out how to cope with it. “Nobody reacts to something positive.” He is quick to point out that he has played a mountain boy (Khaie) and a poor kid from the streets of Lahore (Tann Mann Neelo Neel) and made both work, as if to pre-empt the assumption that his casting has anything to do with his looks.

“Negativity attracts attention,” he laments. He sounds tired by the pattern he’s describing and is still figuring out how to cope with it. “Nobody reacts to something positive.” He is quick to point out that he has played a mountain boy (Khaie) and a poor kid from the streets of Lahore (TMNN) and made both work, as if to pre-empt the assumption that his casting has anything to do with his looks.

He says he stopped reading reviews about a year-and-a-half ago, because caring what strangers think started getting in the way of his work. “If I start caring what 10 people think of me, it affects how I tell a story,” he asserts. “I’m a storyteller. That’s my job.” He still reads messages from fans, and still replies to some of them himself, but he has drawn a firm line around criticism from strangers online.

We begin to talk about an actor who spent years being typecast and being trolled in Pakistan because of her complexion before finding real recognition working abroad. It is proof to him of how much damage the industry’s obsession with looks can do.

“We don’t even realise it,” he says. “When people see someone famous, they can’t handle their own insecurities and they want to say something. That’s on them. Not on us.”

He feels the same way about his family. He posted a photo with his mother and his wife, and the comments turned into unwarranted remarks. “If anyone talks against my family, they won’t be spared,” he says vehemently. For one brief moment during our conversation, the easy tone drops. “I’m very protective of my sisters, my wife, and my mother. I’m their protector.”

Keeping him grounded

If there’s one thread connecting who looks out for Shuja, it’s the women around him. He describes his mother as having “played a very fatherly role” and she continues to give him feedback on his work.

His manager, Samra Muslim, sounds like a stern aunt who doesn’t let him get away with anything. She held him back from photoshoots and press until his work could justify them.

Recently, at a shoot for a commercial, where the crew thought he was being difficult, she pulled him aside. “She told me she didn’t like seeing that attitude in me,” he says. “I thought about it. When I talked to my wife, she agreed with Samra completely.” His wife, for her part, has never complained about his hours, he says. “Her only real request is more time with me.”

It’s Samra, more than Shuja himself, who decides when he’s ready for attention and when he isn’t. “No PR can help you,” he quotes his manager, “until your work is good enough to deserve it.” For three years, he recalls, she kept him at arm’s length from his own success, careful never to let him get too comfortable with praise. The one time that discipline slipped, he says, was after the Hum Awards, when she ran over to hug him.

Ask him where the Pakistani drama industry is heading and his excitement is palpable. He believes that the industry is about to reach a level of success it hasn’t seen before. He points to the sheer range of content with smaller, harder projects like TMNN and the Aik Aur Pakeezah sitting alongside mainstream hits like AIIJ and Meri Zindagi Hai Tu, both finding audiences beyond Pakistan, in India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Turkey. He thinks the industry has started taking real risks with subject matters, citing TMNN’s tackling of male assault.

What frustrates him about the industry, though, is more personal. It is what he calls the unnecessary competition inside the industry, actors and producers alike constantly measuring each other’s looks and talent against one another, a habit he thinks the business would be better off without.

Instagram is the one thing he’d happily give up. “So many times, I’ve asked my manager, please, let me shut down my Instagram.” He wants people to meet Salman from Dr Bahu, or Shehroz from AIIJ, or Barlas from Khaie, before they meet him.

He believes that watching a mountain boy from one drama turn into, as he puts it, “a pappu [cute] Burger Boy” (as he refers to himself) with a new watch, new apartment and new car, all posted in the same week’s scroll, somehow undoes his on-screen work. He brings up Michael Jackson’s refusal to give interviews.

“He wanted to be a mystery,” he says, “because he wanted his work to be seen, not him.” He says, more than once, that he thinks he was simply born in the wrong decade, that he belongs somewhere in the 1980s, before anyone needed to post anything.

Beyond Salman

The three overlapping projects that led up to this year were AIIJ, TMNN and Paradise. They were shot in different parts of the country, sometimes with a political protest thrown in, which became hectic, leaving him eating badly and gaining weight.

“That was the toughest stretch,” he recalls. “I thought, okay, I’m done. I started eating so much. I’d come home at night and just eat.” He talks about the emotional toll more than the physical one.

For example, his morning started with playing a scene where his mother had died. Hours later he was acting in a romantic scene and then fighting with an on-screen father in another. “By the time you get home at night, there’s nothing left for your family.”

Ask who he wants to play next, and the answer seems to surprise even him. Not another villain — someone bright and heroic. “Almost Superman-ish.” Not a man with powers, but a man who’s better than the people around him and still flawed. He’s thinking of Christopher Reeve, whose Superman he grew up watching. He talks about the actors he admires, such as Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Timothée Chalamet and Tom Hanks.

There is also, he says, a part he isn’t sure he could pull off yet, which is a character with a physical disability. Almost immediately he remembers a co-star from TMNN who played a character with special needs and told him how exhausting it was.

In the meantime, he’s doing the unglamorous work a lot of actors his age in Pakistan skip. Dance classes, sessions with a speech therapist and acting workshops, arranged through his manager. He didn’t get into Napa because his A-levels were incomplete. He calls the rejection fair, and speaks about Zia Mohyeddin, the school’s late founding director, with reverence.

“Even now,” he says, “if I get a chance, I would still want to go.” He also wants to take a short acting course abroad for four to six weeks, whenever his schedule allows it. He recently turned down ARY’s Laila Majnu, but the news that he’d signed on spread anyway. He won’t say what’s next, but does concede that it will look nothing like Salman from Dr Bahu.

Ever the underdog

He is, by his own description, an underdog who intends to stay one a while longer.

“I don’t mind being an underdog,” he says. “I want that dark horse energy. No controversy, just good projects.” He says he’s glad fame took a while to arrive, and is happy he wasn’t handed this kind of attention in his 20s, when he wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

He brings up a trip to Houston last October, for the HUM Awards, as the first time he really understood how far his work had reached. The love from overseas Pakistanis and Indians, thousands of miles from home, took him by surprise.

Past all of it, what he actually wants is a farm, cattle, a pickup truck and a cowboy hat. And children, which he doesn’t have yet, despite Instagram pictures with his nieces and nephews that have convinced half the country otherwise. “I love kids,” he says. “They’re so pure. No filter,” he says simply.

Near the end of the interview, almost as an aside, comes a detail that seems to catch him most off guard. We end up talking about my teenage daughter, raised on Netflix, who usually doesn’t watch Pakistani dramas and has started watching Dr Bahu. Shuja Asad goes quiet for a second. “Alhamdulillah [Praise be to God],” he says. “Imagine.”

It’s a small moment, but a telling one: a man used to fame and strangers’ admiration briefly stops on hearing that he is being watched by a teenager who wouldn’t be, in regular circumstances, watching him at all.

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, August 2nd, 2026

Credits: Photography: Shehbaz Shazi | Hair & grooming: NGents | Coordination: Alchemists

Appearing on Thursday’s episode of Good Morning Pakistan, where she said pregnancy blues and postpartum depression were “so real” and needed to be properly addressed by those around the mother-to-be.

One of the guests on the show, Airaas, who got married at 17 and had three kids “without much of a gap” said it was hard for young women to adjust in a new home because every bit of criticism hits harder when they aren’t mature enough to handle it.

She said this was especially true when women are pregnant. “Because at that point, even the tiniest thing someone says sounds very harsh to you, regardless of whether it was that harsh or not.”

She said wisdom comes with age and without it such words can be traumatic, even if they were never intended to be.

Ashraf responded to this by saying society still needed to learn a thing or two about pregnancy instead of teaching the same outdated lessons to the next generation of mothers.

“Earlier, there was no concept of [pregnancy blues and postpartum depression], people would just say, ‘So what? We had children too.’”

The actor said we didn’t know what past generations had to endure and how they were treated by their loved ones during pregnancy, but nowadays people need to understand that when a woman is pregnant, she feels that her entire life is changing.

“It’s a happy feeling, sure, but it’s an anxiety also.”

At this crucial stage, Ashraf said, a girl who feels she has to face these challenges alone can go into a “really bad state of depression”.

“Here, I feel the people around you, your in-laws and especially your husband, they should have more compassion,” the actor said.

She also clarified that this wasn’t limited to just pregnancy, because raising a child was a unique challenge too, especially for a first-time mother.

Host Nida Yasir said handling a child was no easy task, even for someone with experience, to which Ashraf agreed that it wasn’t and said nobody was telling new mothers that it’s okay not to be able to do all of it instinctively.

Yasir quipped that it was important for young women to get degrees and start their careers before getting married because it makes them “rough, tough” and better prepares them for the pressures of life ahead.

Ashraf is not the first Pakistan celebrity to talk about how pregnancy and childbirth can affect a woman’s mental health, Naimal Khawar, Sarwat Gilani and Zara Noor Abbas have all spoken openly about their own struggles with postpartum depression.

Each described the mental and physical toll, something partners and families can — and absolutely should — help new mothers with.

In an Instagram story shared to her account on Friday, Muneer said every day brought “another horrifying story” and destroyed “another innocent life”. She questioned what had happened to us as a society.

She said the fact that the victim this time was an 18-month-old girl — as per reports — made this incident much more than just “disturbing news”.

“A baby who could not even understand what was happening to her was subjected to unimaginable cruelty,” the actor said.

Muneer asked how many more children had to suffer such a fate before people decided to speak up and how many more innocent lives had to be lost before someone took action.

The actor said we need justice, accountability and stronger protection for our children. “And we need a system where those who commit these horrific crimes know that they will face the full consequences of the law,” she said.

She urged everyone reading her message not to scroll past and go about their lives as they usually would. Instead, she said they should speak up, demand justice and “protect our children”.

Earlier, a number of Pakistani celebrities expressed similar sentiments over the incident. Adnan Siddiqui questioned how depraved people had become that this had become our reality. He said the fact that the victim was just 18 months old and the suspect — a relative of the girl who was arrested on Wednesday — was a teenager, made the ordeal that much more horrific.

Ayesha Omar said the country and society were in “the lowest of lows” and called for people to come together and figure out how to move forward in the aftermath of the tragedy.

In an Instagram reel shared on Thursday, Hashmi walked into the assembly building with Alam giving her a tour and showing her the many artworks, dioramas and artefacts on display.

The actor also visited the assembly floor, meeting staffers there and in her host’s office, where the three-time MNA presented her with a token of appreciation and spoke highly of her work representing female legislators in the media.

Alam said she was “proud” of Hashmi for bringing the lives of female parliamentarians and politicians to the screen and thanked her for her work, which she said she found to be “commendable”.

In the post’s caption, the actor said visiting parliament gave her a deeper understanding of the role she played in Leader. “Politics, what just looks like a privilege is more than that — it’s a responsibility, a duty and an all-time commitment,” she wrote.

Hashmi also sat down with Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar during her visit. She said they had a “productive discussion on critical issues, particularly those affecting women in media in our country”.

Earlier in July, Alam and Balochistan MNA Jamal Raisani praised the actor’s performance in Leader, with Alam saying Hashmi owned the role and calling her acting “absolutely phenomenal”.

The actor thanked both lawmakers for their kind words.

Hashmi’s onscreen persona in Leader, Rubab, is the daughter of a shrewd politician with a feudal background. In later episodes, she takes the reins of her father’s political empire, coming into her own as an iron-willed party leader.

According to the FIR registered on the complaint of the girl’s father, the child was taken out by a relative to buy something to eat. When they returned, she was unconscious and taken to a private hospital and then to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where she died.

The relative — a 17-year-old boy who lived with the family — was arrested on Wednesday on charges of allegedly raping and murdering the child.

Among those calling for justice and accountability was actor Sanam Baloch, who said the news was “devastating” and that “justice must be served”.

Baloch said that being a mother herself, she “can’t even imagine the trauma this family must be going through”. She said the safety of the nation’s children was paramount.

Adnan Siddiqui questioned how depraved people had become that this had become our reality. He said the fact that the victim was just 18-months-old — as per reports — and the suspect was a teenager, made the ordeal that much more horrific. He said he was feeling both “disgusted and heartbroken”.

“There are no words left. Only rage, grief and shame that we have come to this,” said Siddiqui. He prayed for “swift and uncompromising justice for the child and strength for her family”.

Ayesha Omar said the country and society were in “the lowest of lows” and called for people to come together and figure out how to move forward in the aftermath of the tragedy.

“We cannot go on like this anymore,” Omar said.

Srha Asghar said we ought to have some shame as another day brought with it another miserable story. Zhalay Sarhadi, meanwhile, could only plead for God’s mercy in these times.

A number of cases of violence and abuse against children have been reported recently, including two gruesome murders that elicited similar reactions in June.

At the time, Siddiqui said that even animals have an instinct to protect their young and questioned how humans had failed so badly in protecting their own.

Omar said, “The environment all over Pakistan is barbaric,” and that she was “shaken, so, so, so angry and feeling hopeless about this country”.

Both demanded accountability for those responsible for harming children.

The actor, accompanied by his son and co-star, Karan Deol, was asked by a journalist to weigh in on “Pakistan as a nation” and its “atmosphere”.

Deol didn’t give a direct answer, and instead quoted his late father, Dharmendra.

“We can’t talk about how [we] feel about it because both countries were once one. As my father used to say, ‘This [India] is my mother and that [Pakistan] is my maternal aunt.’ You all know that. We’re all connected, in one way or another,” he said.

Dharmendra, who passed away last November, was a vocal proponent of strengthening relations between India and Pakistan.

Declining to comment further on Pakistan, Deol highlighted his duty to tell stories as an actor without politicising his craft.

“I don’t wish to get into all that. We are actors. We are makers. We choose stories and make stories. We don’t want to take them in a political direction, nor do we.”

Despite not wanting to ‘politicise’ the matter, the former BJP politician, has been known for extremely political and hyper-patriotic films, such as Border and Gadar. His attempt to distance himself from politics and echo his father’s softer stance towards Pakistan was not received well online.

One X user criticised the actor for using “nationalistic jingoism” to fight elections in the past.

Others called him “opportunistic”.

Many others online slammed him for what they perceived to be his “support” for Pakistan.

While political relations between Pakistan and India have always been strained, the hostilities reached a crescendo in the wake of a four-day military conflict in May 2025. India also put into place digital restrictions on Pakistani entertainment content, including bans on YouTube channels and Instagram profiles of celebrities, even going as far as pulling songs and removing imagery from music streaming platforms, such as Spotify.

A heated debate on social media was, therefore, more or less expected as Batwara 1947 is set during the time of Partition. It tells the story of a Muslim family forced to flee to Pakistan following the violence caused by the Partition of British India. However, tensions continue — and escalate — after they discover a Hindu woman, played by Shabana Azmi, occupying the house they’ve been allotted in Lahore.

Directed by Rajkumar Santoshi, Batwara 1947’s cast also includes Preity Zinta, Ali Fazal and Abhimanyu Singh. It’s set to be released on August 14.

Take, for example, the ARY Digital show Bas Tera Saath Ho. The show’s been running for 28 episodes so far and Hameed is playing the wife of the male lead’s uncle (Faran Tahir). A more recent project she’s doing is ARY’s Dar-e-Nijaat where she plays the mother of the female lead’s dad (also Tahir). Wait…what?

Yeah, we’re not kidding and we’re definitely not alone in thinking it’s a quite weird. In a reel posted on Monday, content creator K Khan asked the team behind Dar-e-Nijaat which angle they looked at Hameed from to think she was even remotely fit to play Tahir’s mum, especially when she’s playing his spouse in a show that airs on the same channel.

In the comment section, actor Zhalay Sarhadi said only women seem to age in Pakistani society, as men never really stop being boys.

“Hence our industry keeps on submitting to this cultural and generational brainwashing. All over the world, it’s changing, just not in this part of the planet.”

She said female actors in Pakistan needed to get “more appropriate roles written for us with better, more realistic casting”.

Sarhadi also joked that if this keeps up, she’ll be playing Humayun Saeed’s mother in a drama soon enough.

Actor Atiqa Odho also thought the whole situation was ridiculous. In a clip from her drama review show Kya Drama Hai, posted on YouTube on Tuesday, she said, “The cast is fantastic, except I don’t understand how Saba Hameed can play Faran Tahir’s mother.”

Odho said Hameed’s look in the show seemed forced because she does not look like a grandmother.

Not everyone thought it was strange though. TV host Juggun Kazim felt the two roles were “a testament to Saba Hameed’s extraordinary talent”.

“She has the rare ability to make you forget the actor and believe the character every single time. We are so lucky to have artists like her,” Kazim said.

Ageism is a contentious subject in Pakistan’s entertainment industry, with some several actors — including Odho — suggesting the rules of age apply very differently to male and female actors.

While male actors in their 40s continue to be cast in lead roles as young men — like Fahad Mustafa playing a 20-something-year-old in Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum — their on screen partners are often much younger girls. Women in their 40s and over, however, frequently get typecast as mothers or much older women.

A representative for the star told The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday she would be “taking a step back from visibility” after she completes her Eternal Sunshine tour on September 1.

“She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which have led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny,” the representative said.

This isn’t just about her music, she has also decided not to appear in a theatre performance of Sunday in the Park with George in London next year, the production company confirmed.

“We know this cannot have been an easy decision and she makes it with our complete understanding and support. The production will open at the Barbican in summer 2027 as planned and casting will be announced in due course,” Empire Street Productions said.

Grande also stars in Focker-in-Law alongside Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller. It is unclear whether she will participate in the film’s promotions in the lead up to its release on November 25.

The singer released her eighth album, Petal, on Friday, with the title track’s music video attracting concern and commentary regarding her health. Fans — and even some celebrities — have said Grande looked incredibly thin and weak.

British model, author and body positivity activist Charlotte Howard was among those speaking out following the release of Grande’s music video.

“I think it’s vital we discuss imagery/videos/content like these and the damage they can — and will — have on women and girls. WHAT YOU SEE HERE IS NOT NORMAL,” Howard wrote in the caption of a post featuring stills from the music video.

She claimed Grande was evidently suffering from anorexia and that it was “absolutely appalling, from both a moral and capitalistic standpoint, to have released these videos and an album when this person needs psychiatric help and hospitalisation”.

Actor and comedian Jameela Jamil also spoke up, claiming the singer was “possibly dying right in front of us” and that it was “thoroughly irresponsible” of her team not to guide her away from presenting such an image to young fans.

Grande herself has told people not to comment on her appearance — or anyone else’s. Last year, she shared footage from a 2024 interview where she was asked about beauty standards.

“I think in today’s society there’s a comfortability that we shouldn’t have, at all, commenting on others’ looks, appearance… what they think is going on ‘behind the scenes’, or health, or how they present themselves. I think it’s dangerous, for both parties involved,” the singer said in the video.

Now, in an Instagram story shared by his wife Sana Faysal, Quraishi says he misspoke and it was actually big of Ahmed not to name names when airing his grievances on a podcast last week.

Sana asked Quraishi what he meant when he said it was “big” of Sheikh, which the actor said was a mistake on his part.

“Actually Sana, I was trying to say it’s big of Mohammed Ahmed sahab that he wasn’t giving out names and it’s good that Fahad apologised. There was a mixup. I’ll delete the video, I just haven’t found the time.”

Quraishi said people were accusing him of favouring Sheikh because he was friends with him. “Guys, Mohammed Ahmed sahab is an older friend of mine, [we’ve been friends] for about 25 years. I made friends with these guys later, but the point is that we’re all together.”

The clarification follows an almost week-long saga after Ahmed had appeared on a podcast on Saturday and said that a “young actor” had disrespected him on set.

This brought on a deluge of supportive comments from members of the entertainment fraternity, including Quraishi, who said he needed a name and would be sure to deal with the young actor personally.

When a video purportedly showing the disrespectful incident began making rounds on social media on Wednesday, people began berating Sheikh publicly. He issued his apology to Ahmed soon after via Instagram stories.

Quraishi’s video on Thursday admonished fans for crossing boundaries in their reactions and said the matter should now be put to rest.

“The kind of comments you guys are making. Look, we all make mistakes, we all err at times in life, but that doesn’t mean you get to go after someone’s kids, or their families, or insult them, curse them and cancel them, that’s not done.”

He said the matter was between Ahmed and Sheikh and asked everyone else to “chill, calm down and let things cool down now”.

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar posted about the incident on X on Thursday, calling Sheikh’s actions “not only condemnable but highly deplorable”.

The minister said he had a possible solution in mind to try to make the entertainment industry a more respectful place. He proposed the establishment of a mentorship programme for young actors where they could learn the trade from their seniors.

Tarar said Ahmed would be a suitable candidate to head the programme as a senior TV artist, or a council of senior actors could do it instead. He said he would be calling a meeting of TV artists soon to gather suggestions for the project.

Appearing on the Dareecha podcast on Saturday, Ahmed had recounted an incident where a much younger actor started ridiculing him in the green room. The actor said the man was the show’s lead actor and spoke in a loud voice to boost his sense of importance in the room. The unnamed actor told people, “This man here, Mohammed Ahmed, I first worked with him four to six years ago and he judged me to see whether I could act, then he told the producer I was alright.”

Ahmed also recounted an incident during a shoot in which the actor took a portable fan from one of the other actors and used it like a hairdryer on Ahmed’s head. “He shouted to everyone, ‘Look, I am styling his hair!’”

On Wednesday, after videos allegedly showing Sheikh as the culprit began circulating on social media, he apologised to Ahmed, saying “half baked stories” were used to “set a narrative”.

He went on to say that he had apologised to Ahmed “long before this whole parade of content sparked out [sic]”.

“He is my senior, I am not ashamed to ask for his forgiveness publicly,” Sheikh said.

“And if Ahmed sahab thinks my personal apology was not enough for him, than I apologise to him on this platform as well, I hope you don’t keep any grudges against me because I would neva think of insulting my seniors in any case [sic],” wrote the actor.

Following the six-story-long apology, some members of the fraternity who had earlier expressed support for Ahmed — notably, Faysal Quraishi and Shamoon Abbasi — appreciated the younger actor for saying sorry publicly and called for calm.

The seven high profile claimants this month lost their case against Associa­ted Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information gathering and invasions of privacy. During an emotional 11-week trial, they accused Mail journalists of bugging their cars and homes, listening into calls and accessing bank accounts and medical records, all of which ANL denied.

In a written judgement published earlier in July, while Harry was in the UK on a fraught trip, the judge said the “claimants failed to prove their pleaded allegations” and dismissed the lawsuit.

Harry, John, his husband David Furnish, actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, campaigner Doreen Lawrence and ex-politician Simon Hughes now face an eye-watering legal bill. In a hearing Wednesday to decide costs, ANL’s lawyers argued the claimants should cover a larger proportion of the publishers’ 34 million ($45 million) costs.

The amount they will need to shell out will depend on whether the judge orders them to pay on a standard basis, or on a stricter indemnity basis.

ANL lawyer Antony White argued the celebrities should pay on an indemnity basis.

Nicholas Bacon, representing the claimants, said it would be “very significant” if they had to pay on the stricter basis, as they would face an insurance shortfall. Bacon said the claimants had a combined insurance cover of 16.2 million, which could leave them out of pocket for “many millions”.

“If the claimants were required to pay Associa­ted’s costs on the indemnity basis, the current level of cover would be insufficient to meet their total costs exposure, possibly to the tune of many millions of pounds,” said Bacon.

Originally published in Dawn, July 30th, 2026

In a reel posted on his Instagram account, Quraishi said he stood behind Ahmed as a member of the fraternity and of the Actors Collective of Pakistan (ACT).

“When I saw Mohammed Ahmed’s video and heard what happened to him, because I am a member of ACT — our association of actors, I represent it and I am a member of the executive committee — we try to make sure no actor feels alone, that’s why I spoke up to support him,” Quraishi said.

He said he was initially unaware who had offended Ahmed, but felt the matter ought to be resolved between colleagues, as is usually the case.

“We have fun on our sets, there’s banter, there’s tomfoolery. Sometimes, there are things that need to be addressed and they are resolved on set. We wanted to resolve this issue within our own circles and put it to rest.”

Quraishi said it was big of Sheikh to admit wrongdoing and apologise on social media. He said the backlash from the public had crossed several lines and was not okay.

“The kind of comments you guys are making. Look, we all make mistakes, we all err at times in life, but that doesn’t mean you get to go after someone’s kids, or their families, or insult them, curse them and cancel them, that’s not done.”

Quraishi said the matter was between Ahmed and Sheikh and asked everyone else to “chill, calm down and let things cool down now”.

Shamoon Abbasi also called for calm and forgiveness in the aftermath of Sheikh’s apology in a video message on Facebook.

The filmmaker said Sheikh apologising “within 24 hours” of the issue coming to light was a good thing and any further “trolling” or “ruining his reputation” would be “excessive”.

What Abbasi said he found “confusing” was how people began dragging any and all young actors when they didn’t know who had disrespected Ahmed.

“Let me tell you, in general, 99 per cent of this lot is super respectful. I’ve worked with them, I’ve worked with Feroze [Khan], Ali Raza. I have not worked with Wahaj [Ali], but I’ve worked with Bilal Abbas and even Fahad Sheikh. Generally, they are very respectful and they try to treat their elders well.”

Abbasi said there were a few different views about the incident and some people claimed Ahmed took part in the jokes too. The filmmaker said people who were present on the set said Ahmed was upset and remained so the next day when he said he didn’t want to work with Sheikh.

Abbasi said there was another way to deal with issues like these, giving the example of Meera, who was asked a series of inappropriate questions on a podcast by journalist Irshad Bhatti in April.

Meera kept her composure to a remarkable degree and tried her hardest to redirect the conversation to her film before calmly walking out.

“Instead of yelling, shouting and making faces, she kept on smiling because she wanted to leave that space with a smile and with grace.”

Abbasi said Meera won hearts with how she exited that interview.

He said Sheikh had apologised and now it was time everyone moved on.

The actor was referring to a video shared widely on social media in which he and other cast members laugh at Ahmed while on set, using a pocket-sized fan to style Ahmed’s hair. The video emerged after an interview given by Ahmed in which he said an actor some 40 years his junior disrespected him on set.

Appearing on the Dareecha podcast with Sheeba Khan, Ahmed recounted an experience where a much younger actor started ridiculing him in the green room. The actor said the man was the show’s lead actor and spoke in a loud voice to boost his sense of importance in the room. The unnamed actor told people, “This man here, Mohammed Ahmed, I first worked with him four to six years ago and he judged me to see whether I could act, then he told the producer I was alright.”

Ahmed also recounted an incident during a shoot in which the actor took a portable fan from one of the other actors and used it like a hairdryer on Ahmed’s head. “He shouted to everyone, ‘Look, I am styling his hair!’”

Ahmed said he did not react at the time because everyone has a mobile phone now and things like this often get posted on social media without context and he didn’t want to stoop to that level. The video that went viral appeared to show the same incident he described in the interview.

The industry rallied behind Ahmed, with many colleagues, including Faysal Quraishi and Shamoon Abbasi, calling for the unnamed actor to come forward and apologise. On Wednesday evening, Sheikh responded to the backlash and said “half cooked stories are always dangerous because they are used to set a narrative,” claiming that on set, they “bond like a family who laughs together, eat with each other and share grievances”.

“This was not my first project with Ahmed Sahab — I have worked with him on many projects, and we shared a bond where we would laugh and have a good time on set,” wrote Sheikh in a series of stories posted to his Instagram account. “I don’t know at what point the joke he initiated himself made him feel like we were bullying him, because that was never anyone’s intent,” he said.

The actor claimed that the many seniors he had worked with in his 11 years in the industry had “always loved [him] like a son”.

He went on to say that he had apologised to Ahmed “long before this whole parade of content sparked out [sic]”.

“He is my senior, I am not ashamed to ask for his forgiveness publicly,” Sheikh said.

“And if Ahmed sahab thinks my personal apology was not enough for him, than I apologise to him on this platform as well, I hope you don’t keep any grudges against me because I would neva think of insulting my seniors in any case [sic],” wrote the actor.

His last story said legal action was being initiated against parties who “circulated out-of-context video material to deliberately mislead the public”.

The video in question sparked anger online, with several actors calling out the blatant disrespect shown in it. Nadia Jamil posted a video to her account in which she said she was “disgusted” by the disrespectful behaviour displayed in the video.

“There is a way to speak to people older than you, even if you’re joking around, there’s an etiquette to that too. There are certain boundaries. When we’re children we’re taught certain limits. Learning when I am crossing the line is a part of our upbringing and I’m sorry, this young man has crossed the line hideously in this video,” she said, adding that it was apparent that Ahmed did not find it funny.

She also called out the person who posted the video, saying it should not have been shared to spare Ahmed from further humiliation.

Leto is an Academy Award winning actor known for roles in Suicide Squad, Dallas Buyers Club and the recent Masters of the Universe, among others.

In Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, 10 women come forward with allegations against the actor. 

One of the women said she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom when she was 17 years old. Another said she was threatened with sexual assault by Leto when she was 19. One woman said she had sex with the actor in California when she was 17 years old — an act classified as statutory rape given that the legal age is 18 in the state — and that Leto “shrugged off” a conversation about the age of consent. A fourth woman described being groomed by Leto, who she claims made several sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16 and suggested they should have sex. 

Four other women also told the BBC that they had received strange and often very sexual phone calls from the actor when they were younger. 

All the women the BBC spoke to say they encountered Leto between 2002 and 2016, when he was in his 30s and 40s. The actor is now 54 years old.

The BBC said it corroborated a number of the women’s accounts with friends and family who were told about the encounters with Leto at the time. In some cases, the BBC said it has also seen pictures and messages that support the women’s accounts.

Two men who worked with Leto’s band for many years told the documentary makers how uncomfortable staff felt about the manner in which Leto interacted with teenage girls, sometimes inviting them backstage to his dressing room or inviting them to the house where he was recording.

“I think everyone thought the age gap was way too big,” one said.

Leto did not respond to requests for comments from the BBC. 

This is not the first time allegations have been levelled against the actor. The BBC counted more than “120 separate allegations made online relating to his behaviour towards women, some of them historical”.

Appearing on the Dareecha podcast with Sheeba Khan, Ahmed recounted an experience where a much younger actor started ridiculing him in the green room.

The senior actor said the culprit was the show’s lead actor and spoke in a loud voice to boost his sense of importance in the room. The unnamed actor told people, “This man here, Mohammed Ahmed, I first worked with him four to six years ago and judged me to see whether I could act, then he told the producer I was alright.”

While that project went ahead and ended without further incident, Ahmed was cast in another programme with the offender, despite his apprehensions. “I told the producer that I was working with [the actor] again and I don’t know if he’s changed. The producer said he was much better behaved now and I shouldn’t worry,” the veteran actor recalled.

Ahmed said the younger actor displayed ‘good’ behaviour on the very first day of the shoot by taking a portable fan from one of the other actors and using it like a hairdryer on Ahmed’s head. “He shouted to everyone, ‘Look, I am styling his hair!’”

Ahmed said he did not react at the time because everyone has a mobile phone now and things like this often get posted on social media without context and he didn’t want to stoop to that level anyway.

While the veteran actor is understandably upset, his colleagues are even angrier. Faysal Quraishi, who saw a post about the incident, asked for the actor’s name. “Then the matter is between me and him,” Quraishi said.

Zara Tareen, sharing Quraishi’s remarks, said a problem with the industry was that it produced stencils rather than artists — Ahmed had said the culprit had the same acting and the same hairstyle on every show.

Actor Ali Raza was asked by a fan if he was guilty of disrespecting Ahmed, to which the younger actor said he was a “huge fan” of the older actor and it was unfortunate that he had not had an opportunity to work with him.

“How can I? And why would I?” Raza asked.

Actor Syed Jibran wrote a note “strongly suggesting” the person responsible come forward and apologise, even if Ahmed had been gracious enough not to name and shame him in front of the whole country.

Jibran said the actor was clearly “deeply hurt, otherwise he wouldn’t have opened his heart out in that podcast”. He called the incident “absolutely shocking and shameful”.

Shamoon Abbasi also asked that the offender apologise, but his was less of a request. The filmmaker claimed he knew who the young actor was and said he should say sorry before the public found out who he was and began to cancel him.

Abbasi said Ahmed was one of the sweetest seniors in the industry, which made the incident even more upsetting and being judged and mentored by seniors was a part of every young actor’s journey.

As for the veteran actor himself, he posted on Instagram on Wednesday, thanking the entertainment fraternity for their love and support over the issue.

“I am truly overwhelmed and touched by all the messages, calls and voice notes I have received from all my colleagues in the industry. Thank you to each and every one of you. It has truly been heartwarming to see how you have all reached out and stood up for me.”

Ahmed said he was choosing “to focus on these positive messages instead of that negative experience” and all the love he received makes him feel his years in the industry have been worth it.

In an interview with Maliha Rehman, posted on YouTube on Monday, the actor listed out the requirements a woman needs to meet to be considered “beautiful” in Pakistani culture and the entertainment industry.

“The problem is, our industry or our culture has created this mould and they’ve kept it so small that not everyone can fit into it. I can’t fit into it,” Khan said.

The beauty checklist included the girl being fair, being a size zero, being tall and having long hair. “If you don’t fit into that mould, you’re not good enough, unfortunately,” the actor said.

Khan said she had been through that process where her beauty was gauged through that lens and it left an impact on her for some time, but now she’s “stopped justifying it”.

Responding to a question on why she doesn’t respond to discourse surrounding her show on social media, Khan said, “I don’t respond because I believe everyone’s entitled to their opinion. Whether it’s correct or not, that’s irrelevant.”

Rehman said fans had been calling out her character’s behaviour on the show, to which Khan laughed and said, “They started calling me out too. I am just like, ‘That’s [my character’s] doing, not mine.’”

The actor said some discourse about her casting was hurtful. “Just because I didn’t respond, doesn’t mean I am not affected by it.”

Some fans, she said, were being counterproductive even when they tried to support her online by perpetuating harmful trends and discourse, like bringing up her weight.

Later in the interview, Khan said she sometimes found the conversations about her on social media funny, especially since she isn’t very active on there anyway.

She said she had developed a thick skin and only really paid attention to what people were saying about her when it became a trend. However, the actor insisted that nobody had the right to “rip you apart” in the guise of having an opinion.

The comedian posted a reel addressing the many comments new parents have to listen to in Pakistani society in his signature style.

The first thing he brought up was how some people say is how parenthood means you are cursed never to get a good night’s sleep ever again. Seriously, it’s a kid, not a drug habit, he said, adding that, “It’s only a matter of a few months, [the baby will] settle down and start sleeping through the night.”

His second contention was with the idea that having a kid means the parents’ own lives are effectively over. The comedian said just because the people saying this had kids who tortured them does not mean this is, or will be, everyone else’s reality too.

Another bone Gul Pir had to pick was how some people think you can’t have pets and kids in the same house. A dog owner himself, he said there are studies that say children who grow up with pets have “fewer allergies and more compassion”.

With all that said and done, the comedian got to all the things people say about having a second kid.

For everyone who gets a little too nosy about it, he said, “Whenever we do [have another kid], we won’t tell you specifically, because you’ll turn our brains to chutney the moment you find out”.

And for all — generally older — people calling women fat mere months after they’ve given birth, he had just one question: “You lose your breath after climbing four steps and you’re talking about other people’s physique?”

Gul Pir asked why, whenever anyone is about to take a big step in their life, Pakistani society sees a duty to flood them with warnings.

“Like everything big in life [having a baby] demands sacrifice. And if some things aren’t like they used to be, let them go, because so many things are so much better. You’ll experience new joys, focus on those.”

The comedian welcomed his first child — a baby boy named Salar — with his wife, Dr Azeemah Nakhoda, last month. Gul Pir announced the news to the world on Father’s Day, posting pictures of the family and the Father’s Day gifts he got.

In an Instagram story posted on Thursday, Anjum said, “[The] Pakistani government cannot protect [its citizens], whether it’s at home or in another country.”

The rapper lamented that “the media forgot about these families and sadly, so did the people of Pakistan.”

He was joined by his longtime collaborator Umair Tahir — known mononymously as Umair — in calling for a rescue. Tahir posted a story early on Friday, calling for all 17 crew members who were aboard the MT Honour 25 to be recovered.

The vessel was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia in April, resulting in national outcry and calls for the government to work towards the rescue of the Pakistani sailors onboard.

Anjum was one of the first to speak up, saying he knew one of the crew members personally, adding that he was “like a brother” to him.

At the time, the rapper had said he was “ashamed” as a Pakistani at the government’s “non seriousness” and “under the rug policy” when it came to its citizens trapped abroad. He pleaded for authorities to “wake up and bring them home”.

In June, Anjum appealed for action again, this time urging the Foreign Office to set up a dedicated, constantly-manned helpline to liaise with the families of the hostages, who deserved answers beyond the “generic, occasional statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claiming they are ‘in touch with Somali Maritime forces’”.

Other celebrities who have spoken up on the issue include Mahira Khan, Sabeena Farooq and, most recently, Bushra Ansari.

Baig posted a picture of himself with Michael on Instagram with a sticker saying “Wifey”, which the model also re-shared to her account.

The picture led to a number of congratulatory messages for the couple from fans and industry colleagues, which Michael shared on her story. Different accounts sent them well wishes and prayed for their happiness.

Baig posted a second message on his Instagram account later, asking people to respect his privacy and wishes in light of his divorce and decision to remarry.

In a statement addressed to “family, friends, colleagues and everyone who has supported me”, the actor shared that his divorce had been finalised some time ago and both he and his ex-wife had moved on with their lives.

Baig said he had “begun a new chapter filled with hope, happiness and gratitude” and that he was “thankful for the support and well wishes I have received from those who have stood by me throughout the journey”.

He asked people to leave the past behind, not engage in “rumours, assumptions or comparisons” and respect the privacy of everyone involved.

The actor said his focus now was on “my family, my responsibilities as a father, my marriage and the future that lies ahead”.

Professionally, Baig has gathered a number of acting credits in Pakistan — and some in Hollywood, with a recent appearance in the second season of Deli Boys. He is also a fashion influencer, for which he has been given the Fashion Influencer of the Year award by Filmfare Middle East in 2023 and 2024.

Michael became a recognisable face in the modelling circuit and appeared in the Miss Charm and Miss Grand beauty pageants in 2023 and 2024 as Pakistan’s representative. She also has a some acting credits to her name, including a major role in the feature film Kahay Dil Jidhar.

Sharing a video of the crackdown, Anjum said he held the protesters in high regard and could understand their anger against the system in an Instagram story on Wednesday.

“To the student protesters in India. I have so much respect for your resilience, I understand your frustration, I understand what they’re trying to do [to] you. Stay strong,” the rapper said.

Anjum, who is Pakistan’s most streamed artist on Spotify, has a large fan following in India. His fans from across the border even landed him in hot water in November when he was handed an Indian flag while performing on stage in Nepal.

The rapper draped the flag on his shoulders in an apparent gesture of love and respect that ended with him apologising to fans in Pakistan on live TV.

He’s also not one to mince words over causes he believes in, recently raising his voice for the rescue of Pakistani seamen who were captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia in April.

Anjum called on the Foreign Office to set up a separate helpline manned constantly by one of its officers to liaise with the sailors’ families who deserved more than just a “generic, occasional statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claiming they are ‘in touch with Somali Maritime forces’”.

The protests in New Delhi have been ongoing since last month, with the satirical CJP demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan after a series of entry test leaks.

Climate change activist Sonam Wangchuk joined the protesters, vowing to go on a hunger strike until the protesters’ demands were met. The 59-year-old was forcibly moved to a hospital by police on Saturday, 20 days into his hunger strike.

The CJP has maintained its sit-in in the Indian capital after an attempt to march to parliament on Monday was refused official permission and met with police action that left dozens injured.

The content creators announced their engagement on Christmas in 2024.

According to People Magazine, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, married fellow content creator Booysen in an ‘intimate’ wedding at Richard Branson’s Necker Island, in front of 70 friends and family members. The publication reported that the event kicked off on July 14 and took place over the course of the week at the 74-acre private island resort.

The bride wore a custom dress by Nicole + Felicia Couture, while the groom wore a tux by Ralph Lauren.

In June 2025, Donaldson hit 400 million subscribers on YouTube.

MrBeast’s channel, which began in 2012 with gaming content and experimental formats, found its breakout moment in 2017 with a viral video of him counting to 100,000. Since then, his brand of high-stakes challenges, philanthropy-driven giveaways, and jaw-dropping production scale has made him a global icon.

Beyond his viral videos, his initiatives include funding cataract surgeries, cochlear implants, and building houses for unhoused citizens in Jamaica.

MrBeast’s journey has also been marred with a lawsuit. In September of last year, five anonymous contestants brought claims on behalf of everyone who participated in his gameshow series. They alleged they weren’t paid, were subjected to unsafe conditions and experienced sexual harassment while on his $5 million jackpot game show, Beast Games.

Hottle and another passenger were in a 1995 Honda Accord driven by a 19-year-old man when it veered off a two-lane highway and struck a culvert, according to Frederick County Sheriff’s Office. “Excessive speed is belie­v­ed to be a contributing factor in the collision,” said the force, which responded to the scene around 2:52am (0652 GMT) and is investigating the crash.

Hottle was transported to a hospital where she was later pronounced dead, police said. The driver sustained injuries not believed to be life-threatening, while the other passenger declined medical treatment.

The actress, who is deaf, played the major role of “Jia” in Godzilla v Kong and the sequel Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. She was nominated in 2024 for the Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor.

Originally published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2026

Cover photo: AFP

From Zara Noor Abbas to Talha Chahour and Mawra Hocane, emotions were high on Instagram.

Adnan Siddiqui shared a picture of Spain hoisting the trophy and said, “No offence to Messi and Argentina fans, but today felt like comparing Wi-Fi to [Dial-up]. And if Argentina had won, Egypt and I would have unfollowed football…. Just for a week.😉”

Zara Noor Abbas was the most excited person out there, sharing a video of herself with an on-screen Lamine Yamal.

We can infer from all her posts that she’s a fan of the young star.

Ushna Shah addressed the elephant in the room — the many, many allegations of rigging and unfair decisions plaguing the World Cup and the Argentinian team.

So did Talha Chahour, who shared a picture of Lionel Messi, calling him “FIFA’s favourite child”.

For Maanu, supporting Spain and supporting Palestine went hand-in-hand. Spain’s government has been a vocal supporter of Palestine, recognising its statehood and pushing to suspend EU ties with Israel.

Maanu wasn’t the only one highlighting Spanish — and young star Lamine Yamal’s — support of Palestine. Chahour also shared a picture of Yamal hoisting the Palestinian flag in Barcelona in May while celebrating FC Barcelona’s 29th La Liga title, as did Mawra Hocane.

“When you stand [on] the wrong side of history, it’s bound to get ‘Messi’,” wrote Zhalay Sarhadi.

Asim Azhar shared his thoughts on the match — that Messi deserved the win, but Argentina did not.

He later shared that he wasn’t a Spain fan (England is his team) but he had the opportunity to visit the country recently and found it to be “so warm, beautiful, inclusive”.

There were many, many stars who celebrated Spain’s win. Maria Unera, Naimal Khawar, Mariyam Nafees and Sana Javed all shared their joy online.

Aijazz Aslam congratulated Spain and spoke about how he switched sides. “I was rooting for Argentina at the start. Messi’s magic always pulls me in but somewhere in the middle of that final, I switched sides. Argentina were pushing and playing rough, and it just didn’t sit right with me,” he wrote.

“Spain kept their composure and played the better, fairer game. Well deserved, Spain. What a final.”

Even Samar Jafri, who has on many, many occasions expressed his support for Messi, had to hand it to Spain.

Other Argentina fans, like Sajal Ali, were feeling down.

There were a lot of celebrations of Messi as an individual player and talk of him handing down the GOAT torch to Yamal.

Zarrar Khan said that seeing Messi cry breaks his heart, even though he’s a Ronaldo fan. “The Argentinian football team in general is despicable in how they play football and how pathetic they are as sportsmen, but the past two World Cups have proved what an insane carry-job Messi has been doing and how magical he is,” he wrote.

“What a player, what a career. It has been a privilege to witness. There will never be anyone like Leo Messi.”

“You are the greatest ever to step onto this field. Thank you for the countless memories. No one will ever come close to the legacy you’ve left behind,” wrote Jafri in a post dedicated to Messi.

Sami Khan shared a picture of Messi and Yamal, saying, “From generation to next…From present GOAT to future GOAT.”

Syed Jibran shared a picture of himself and his son wearing Argentinian and Spanish jerseys, captioning it “the Kid vs The Goat”.

And of course, there were the inevitable jokes about Messi and Yamal’s Unicef photoshoot and baby Yamal going on to defeat Messi.

Which side were you supporting?

In a collaborative effort with the charitable organisation War Child UK, Tucci posted a video saying war was “tearing little lives apart”.

“Drones aren’t lullabies. Rubble isn’t a playground. War is not a childhood,” the actor said, adding that children were “paying with their lives for wars they didn’t start”.

Tucci said the horrors of armed conflict were the “reality for millions of children around the world, from Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan”.

He urged followers to support War Child’s mission to “reach vulnerable children in some of the most dangerous places in the world with life-saving supplies and mental health first aid”.

The Devil Wears Prada star has worked with the charity since 2022 as part of an impressive record of philanthropy, especially when it comes to causes focusing on children. He has been working with UNHCR for refugee rights since 2017.

An earlier project he did with War Child in 2023 raised £60,000 for children in war-torn areas by selling specially designed t-shirts.

The organisation has been involved in a number of high-profile celebrity fundraising initiatives, especially with musicians under its in-house record label War Child Records.

Their recent charity album, HELP(2), had acts including Arooj Aftab and Olivia Rodrigo come together for their cause. It released via their store and on streaming platforms in March.

The album had 23 tracks and a special bonus recording donated by Oasis of their performance of ‘Acquiesce’ from last year. The album’s first track, ‘Opening Night’, was the first track from the Arctic Monkeys after an almost four-year hiatus following their 2022 release The Car.