Since the last three months, Patari has been in the news for all the wrong reasons! The thriving start-up first came under fire when its co-founder was accused of sexual misconduct by a number of women under the viral #MeToo movement. From that point onward, things have only gone downhill for Patari, making the company less likely to recover from all this mess anytime soon.
Let’s take a look at the timeline of the scandals that have rocked Patari since April, 2018!
Read:Â 5 Measures Patari Music Must Take To Redeem Itself After The Debacle Of Khalid Bajwa
April 11th
A woman named Mehravaar took to social media to share the screenshots of her chat with the co-founder and then CEO of Patari, Khalid Bajwa. The screenshots clearly showed how Bajwa continuously steered the conversation to inappropriate topics, making the other person uncomfortable.
I mean, this is the most recent convo I have after which I kind of gave up and couldn’t make any more excuses so just stopped replying and blocked him. I felt uncomfortable and overpowered by a man twice my age. We bumped into each other once or twice in public spaces/social e
— meh (@antipastiii) April 11, 2018
Under any false pretense and take advantage of them. It could be as trivial/important as asking for pictures you’re not willing to send. Attaching screenshots. Have confided in people over the years who can confirm his creepy behavior. Stop glorifying abusers/harrassers pic.twitter.com/qhudhTgwZx
— meh (@antipastiii) April 11, 2018
The brave move encouraged other women who had been victims of harassment by Khalid Bajwa to confirm the authenticity of these allegations.
The development enraged Pakistanis and soon Patari found itself under immense public pressure to take an action, following which Bajwa had to step down from the designation of CEO Patari and an audit was initiated to investigate the matter. Given below is the official statement that Patari released within a few hours of the expose.
Read:Â The Case Of Sadat Bashir Shows That Pakistan Is Finally Raising Its Daughters Right!
Patari’s investor syndicate also released an official public statement, condemning the sexual misconduct by Bajwa. Also, Ahmer Naqvi’s name was announced as the interim CEO of Patari.
July 1st
5:14 PM:
Patari once again managed to trigger anger and disgust among people for enabling harassers when it added the soundtracks of Ali Zafar’s Teefa in Trouble on the music streaming website. Faizan, a contributing artist to Patari, highlighted the addition on the website in a thread where he also demanded taking down his podcast from Patari.
okay why the FUCK is patari hosting teefa in trouble's soundtrack?? what are you trying to do, @patarimusic??? didn't you remove your ceo for harassment, so why are you now enabling other harassers instead?
this is NOT cool and i just uninstalled your app #DeletePatari pic.twitter.com/yNBrNgrIxF
— Faizan. (@thoraoffbeat) July 1, 2018
To register his protest, he also initiated a #DeletePatari movement, urging people to uninstall the app for promoting predatory behavior by supporting an artist like Ali Zafar who has been accused of sexually harassing Meesha Shafi and two other women.
Read:Â 3 Prominent Pakistanis For Whom April, 2018 Has Been A Nightmare!
This led to an outrage among Pakistani twitterati who flooded the micro-blogging website with resentment.
https://twitter.com/laraibmufc/status/1013397848073924608
5:59 PM:
Rumors of the return of Khalid Bajwa as CEO Patari started making rounds which shook everyone and everything, most importantly the #MeToo movement in Pakistan.
Yes guys, Khalid Bajwa is the CEO of Patari once again.
Various employees left because of this decision as well. And they left Patari with decency and work ethics. Don’t drag them into this.
— soha (@SohaTazz) July 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/mahwashajaz_/status/1013408414716825601
7:16 PM:
While people were still wrapping their head around this disturbing news, Ahmer Naqvi ended his Twitter hiatus by releasing a detailed resignation note undersigned by 5 other key members of the startup. The statement explained how Bajwa kept on influencing the decisions and operations in the organization through different means.
The letter also shed light on the company’s current environment which is anything but the progressive values that helped in building the Patari community in the first place.
Ending my Twitter hiatus to share a (personally) monumental decision regarding my position at @patarimusic.
Detailed statement: https://t.co/TZIhSMRvQN pic.twitter.com/RjL9QYeqRO
— Ahmer Naqvi (@karachikhatmal) July 1, 2018
The decision was cheered by the who’s who of the online community and scores of people came out in support of the bereaved former emplyees.
Read: You’re A Certified Sexual Harasser If You Do These 5 ThingsÂ
Patari was once again in a tight spot and reacted within 24 hours of the development. Rabeel Warraich was announced as the interim CEO of the company.
1/3 This company statement is for immediate release with a more comprehensive statement to follow.
After a two month audit and negotiation between Co-founders and principal investor:
1. Rabeel Warraich is announced as interim CEO with immediate affect
2. Khalid…— Patari (@patarimusic) July 2, 2018
That being said, the damage was already done and thus, we saw growing repugnance against Patari that completely failed to curb the mess this time.
July 4th
Dawn leaks have always added to the woes of many. The case here is no different! Screenshot of an internal communication of Patari was leaked to Dawn which showed how the company pushed down Faris Shafi’s (Meesha Shafi’s brother) song to the end of the list due to pressure from Ali Zafar.
While Faris Shafi and Ali Sethi have expressed their dismay over, “…the manipulation of a national musical platform,” Patari’s interim CEO Rabeel Warraich in a weak attempt to brush the issue under the carpet attributed the discriminatory move to the error of judgement on the part of a young team.
Read:Â After Meesha Shafi, More Women Share Stories Of Sexual Harassment By Ali Zafar
Rabeel also defended Patari’s decision to host Teefa in Trouble’s soundtrack on the premise of respecting the hard work of other people involved in the project.
The leak has provoked the ire of Pakistanis who are not only joining the #DeletePatari campaign but have also started giving lower rating to the app on Google Play Store.
The last three months have undoubtedly left Patari’s hypocritical approach bare and exposed the dark side of all those who had long been wearing the mask of progressive beings. The platform which was once hailed for introducing young talent has now turned into a toxic business that nobody wants to associate themselves with.
Irfan Junejo, one of the most famous Youtubers to partner with Patari, sent out a tweet last night which reflects how everyone feels about the company right now!
Read:Â Meesha Shafi vs Ali Zafar: Debunking The Conspiracy Theories
https://twitter.com/irfanjunejo/status/1014529889226121216
Whether Patari will be able to redeem itself or not, only time will tell!
This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.