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Actor Ushna Shah has penned an open letter to Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, asking her to take stronger action against animal cruelty in the province — and the actor isn’t mincing her words.

In an Instagram post addressed directly to the chief minister, Shah began by acknowledging what she described as visible improvements in Punjab — from women’s safety to cleanliness and public order. “You are almost perfect,” she wrote, adding that even those who have not traditionally supported the PML-N are noticing the direction the province appears to be taking.

“But there is a silence,” she continued.

That silence, according to Shah, surrounds repeated incidents of animal abuse — some of which have gone viral in recent months. She referenced a video circulating online that showed a dog tied to a vehicle and dragged along a main road, purportedly in Punjab. According to Shah, the clip sparked outrage, with commenters blaming the provincial government for failing to create deterrence to such acts of cruelty. “People wrote that Maryam Nawaz is killing animals. Whether fair or unfair, this is the perception forming,” she wrote, arguing that cruelty cases keep occuring without visible consequences.

Shah’s list of grievances read like a catalogue many Pakistanis sadly recognise — organised dog fighting, donkeys beaten, animals injured and crushed during anti-encroachment operations, and violent treatment at markets.

Dog fighting, though illegal, continues to surface in news reports. In one case, dozens of people were arrested in Punjab earlier this month for organising and attending a dog fight where betting was involved.

In her letter, Shah proposed province-wide spay and neutering programmes instead of poisoning or culling, proper enforcement of existing cruelty laws, humane regulation of donkey carts (“no whips, no wounds”), banning the private ownership of wild animals, and shutting down dogfighting and other violent animal spectacles.

She also floated a bigger idea — transitioning zoos into sanctuaries, a concept increasingly discussed in Pakistan and globally.

The actor framed her appeal in moral and religious terms as well, reminding the Punjab CM that animals are “Allah ki makhlooq” and invoking the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) about kindness towards animals. Posting during Ramazan, she added in her caption: “May this Ramazan not be a performative one. May we all contribute to making this planet, as Allah intended, a haven for all of His creatures.”

Her point is straightforward — cruelty persists, laws exist, enforcement appears weak, and leadership sets the tone.

Punjab does have animal cruelty laws on paper, and dog fighting, as well as dog culling, is illegal. But enforcement tends to be reactive — a raid here, an arrest there — rather than part of a sustained welfare framework. Municipal responses to stray dogs often oscillate between public pressure and short-term solutions, instead of long-term sterilisation and vaccination drives that experts say are more humane and effective.

We don’t know if the chief minister will respond to Shah publicly, but the actor’s letter reflects a growing discomfort with how routinely animal suffering is normalised in public spaces. And as Shah put it, the question isn’t which politician to tag. It’s whether anyone in power is willing to treat the province’s “voiceless” as constituents too.