Senate human rights committee approves screening of 'Zindagi Tamasha'

The Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights on Tuesday approved the screening of Sarmad Khoosat's Zindagi Tamasha.

In a post on Twitter, PPP Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokar, who chairs the panel said the Committee had has unanimously agreed with the censor board’s decision to allow the film to screen.

“We’ve found nothing wrong with it. Censor board has our go-ahead to release post-COVID. Detail reasoning to follow later,” he tweeted.

In January, the government had announced it would approach the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) for a critical review of Zindagi Tamasha. However, in March, Senate’s HR body took up the matter and barred the CII from reviewing it.

Earlier, the censor authorities in Punjab and Sindh had announced that they were banning the release of the movie.

The film, written by Nirmal Bano, a fresh graduate from NCA, was set to release on January 24, 2020.

Directed and co-produced by Khoosat along with his sister Kanwal Khoosat, Zindagi Tamasha is set in Lahore and chronicles the chaos that ensues in the life of a devout elderly man when a video featuring him gets uploaded onto social media.

The movie stars Eman Suleman, Samiya Mumtaz, Arif Hasan and Ali Qureshi in lead roles.

Earlier, Khoosat had revealed that he was receiving threats over the release of the film. In a lengthy note posted on his Twitter, Khoosat had sought advice from people over whether he should withdraw Zindagi Tamasha or not.

Khoosat had clarified that the film doesn't contain objectionable content as it has already been cleared by the censor authorities.

The "Manto" actor, however, refrained from naming the people who were coercing him to stop the release of the film.