Saba Qamar hits back at people criticising her for not wanting to move to Karachi — again
When Saba Qamar said she wouldn’t ever move to Karachi back in October, she likely had no idea what kind of storm her comments would kick up. Yet here we are, almost three and a half months later with people continuing to insist that she shouldn’t have said what she did.
The latest critic is actor Juvaria Abbasi, who was on Ahmed Ali Butt’s podcast Excuse Me when Butt asked her if she was upset with Qamar for her comments.
“I am not upset at her, but one should respect the place they earn from. Karachi gave her fame, respect,” she replied.
When the host interjected to say Qamar loves Karachi, his guest said, “I didn’t like her expression about Karachi because we respect Lahore a lot. I love Lahore, I always go to Lahore, I’ve stayed in Lahore, worked in Lahore. We don’t go around saying ‘Astaghfirullah!’”
Abbasi said all cities were our own as Pakistanis and we can’t go around degrading them.
The 40-second clip appears to be what Qamar was reacting to when she put up a story on her Instagram on Tuesday, saying “‘Astaghfirullah’ means I seek forgiveness from Allah, something many people may not fully understand.”
In a follow-up story, she said, “Freedom of speech is a basic right.” The Muamma star wrote, “everyone deserves the comfort of expressing their thoughts openly” and lamented seeing people “hold back out of fear or restriction”.
She said she hoped to see a future where “every voice can be heard with respect and without fear”.
Earlier, Qamar faced backlash when she made the original remarks, with actor Javeria Saud saying, “The city is not dirty, people’s minds are dirty.”
Hina Khwaja Bayat, in a more tempered and reasonable response, equated the country to a house and its cities as different rooms. She said people must “think before [they] speak” and criticism should be constructive.
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