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One of the most beloved television anchorpersons in Pakistan, Zarrar Khuhro had gone in a state of complete silence for an entire week after Jami came forward with his #MeToo ordeal. Jami had accused a “powerful media giant” of brutally raping him 13 years ago.
Read: #MeToo: Jami Has No Legal Protection As Pakistani Law Does Not Recognize Male Rape
Jami’s narrative had met with censorship from mainstream media outlets, most notably Dawn and Geo, who had simultaneously taken down the story from their websites. The story was only made live again after either terms such as “media tycoon” were taken out of the headline or identifiers such as a reference to the rapist’s “book and museum launches” were downplayed.
Read: Jami Mehmood, “My Life Is In Literal Hell. I Am Still In Hiding.”
This knee-jerk reaction by mainstream media had only added fuel to speculations around the name of the culprit.
In what is grandly unprecedented, Zarrar Khuro who is often widely respected for his balanced views and his ability to objectively analyze and articulate even the most complex of issues had come under fire for his media outlet’s blatant censorship of Jami’s #MeToo story.
The journalist, who is otherwise a regular on Twitter had taken an unannounced leave from micro-blogging after Twitterati began accusing him and his Zara Hut Kay co-host, Mubashir Zaidi of intentionally refusing to discuss Jami’s rape ordeal in their show.
After more than a week of staying away from tweeting, Khuhro finally broke his silence on Wednesday evening, admitting that “…editing out parts of Jami’s tweets was ill-advised to say the very least.”
Khuhro, however defended Dawn, saying that the full story was back up and comments on Jami’s stance were also being “displayed prominently on the website.”
In what sounded a lot like frustrated haplessness – if not downright apathy – Zarrar Khuhro said that nothing more could be done as Jami had not directly named the rapist.
“Beyond that, there isn’t much to be done here, like it or not (and it will probably be the latter) as the accused has not been directly named (strongly implied, yes, but not named), thus precluding any defence, or even a response from the accused.”
-Zarrar Khuhro
Jami, however remained unconvinced asking Zarrar Khuhro to explain why the original post covering his story remained hidden somewhere in the debris of news items and not prominently featured as that of other high profile #MeToo stories such as that of singer, Meesha Shafi.
This is the first time since Jami came forward with his #MeToo survival story that a journalist from within Dawn has acknowledged that the filmmaker’s narrative was in fact censored by the media outlet.
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