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In a harrowing turn of events, renowned screenwriter Khalilur Rehman Qamar was allegedly kidnapped, tortured, and looted in Lahore earlier this week. The incident, which has sent ripples through the entertainment industry and beyond, was reported to have occurred around midnight on Monday, July 15. Qamar held a press conference today (Monday) to speak about the incident.

According to the FIR registered at the Sundar Police Station in Lahore, Qamar received a phone call from an unknown number close to midnight. The caller, who identified herself as Amna Urooj, claimed to be a fan of Qamar and expressed a desire to collaborate with him on a TV drama.

Qamar, known for his popular dramas like Meray Paas Tum Ho and Pyarey Afzal, agreed to meet her. He reached the given location at approximately 4:40am, where Urooj welcomed him into her house. However, soon after he sat down, there was a knock on the door, and around seven armed men entered the room. The men conducted a body search, seizing Rs60,000, an iPhone 11, a Bank Al-Habib ATM card, and Qamar’s national identity card.

The FIR said the abductors withdrew over Rs200,000 from a separate bank account belonging to Qamar. The kidnappers allegedly told him that they had orders to kill him, demanding a ransom of Rs10 million.

During his press conference, Qamar spoke about his frightening experience. He explained his reasons for meeting Urooj at such an odd hour, citing medical advice to avoid daytime outings due to health issues.

“I am sick and my doctor has strictly told me to not go out in the daytime for five years. Even if he hadn’t said that, we meet people at night and you don’t differentiate between men and women. When there’s no objection to me meeting men at night, then why should there be an objection to me agreeing to see this woman at the break of dawn? Because this happened at 4:40am, I had not agreed to go at night when I got the call. For the past 15 days, she was pestering me to see her.”

A reporter alleged that Urooj, in her statement to the police, claimed that she and Qamar had been exchanging text messages and pictures for a week. Qamar vehemently denied this, stating that Urooj wanted to be in his drama and that he no longer had a record of the messages.

In the midst of the conference, the writer shamed women in showbiz (again), perhaps as a rebuttal of sorts to claims that he fell for a honey trap. “The girls in my field, the kind of clothes they wear and the way they talk, I’ve been seeing that for the past 27 years now. It’s nothing new to me,” he said, in response to a reporter alleging that the woman did not seem the type to be cast in dramas.

He also added that he did not know the woman would be alone at home.

A reporter pointed out that Qamar is known for making controversial statements about women, and now that he’s been kidnapped by one, perhaps there was some kind of explanation for all of this.

Qamar struggled to make sense of the connection being drawn between his past statements and the recent kidnapping incident. The press conference then became chaotic as reporters cross-questioned him, leading the police to end the event and escort the writer out.

Ironically, following the incident, a 2019 interview of Qamar has also resurfaced in which he mockingly says that if women want equality, they should consider kidnapping a man — him.

“I spoke to a feminist group about equality. I asked them if they’d ever heard about a gang of men kidnapping a woman. They assured me they have. I asked them why don’t women do the same. If you wish to strive for equality then kidnap men as well. Rob a bus, gang rape a man so that I can understand what you [women] mean by equality,” Qamar said in the video.