Dawn Images

A song from Ayesha Omar and Shamoon Abbasi’s upcoming film Dhai Chaal has released and it’s paying tribute to the unsung heroes of Balochistan and Pakistan.

On Tuesday, the Bulbulay actor shared the news on her Instagram account captioned, “Presenting to you the first official song ‘Niklo Pakistan Ki Khatir’ from Dhai Chaal — the film. This song is paying tribute to the unsung heroes of Balochistan/Pakistan.”

Sung by Sahir Ali Bagga, the lyrics of the song encourage the spirit of patriotism. The scenes accompanying the music video seem to show the people fighting against terrorism. There are violent gun encounters, protests and what seems like intelligence officers discussing a strategy to bring down crime in the region.

But you may have heard the song during former PM Imran Khan’s 2018 election campaign — that’s because a version of this song was released back then. “We had bought the rights to the song in 2018 but they needed a part of it for the elections for a little while so they played it. We put a stop to it later since we had the rights — this is basically our song. If you check the promo, it reads ‘official song of Dhai Chaal by Sahir Ali Bagga’. It has been properly released now,” director Taimoor Sherazi told Images.

“The version they released in 2018, its lyrics also differ from ours. We got them changed to what we wanted, as per our demand,” he added.

Dhai Chaal is a film based on the story of Indian RAW agent Kulbhushan Jadhav, played by Abbasi. The story is told through the lens of a journalist, played by Omar, and it explores the political atmosphere in Balochistan at the time. Jadhav was convicted and sentenced to death in 2017 by a military tribunal for spying.

A “tribute to beloved actor Rasheed Naz”, the movie has been produced by Dr Irfan Ashraf. The film’s cast also includes Humayoun Ashraf, Adnan Shah Tipu, Taqi Ahmed, Saleem Meraj, Areej Chaudhary, Faraz Marri, Jamal Gilani, Pakiza Khan and Anya Hassan.

Dhai Chaal was first expected to come out in Feb 2020. However, the trailer released in March said the film will release “this summer” though there seemingly has been another delay.