Promotions for web series Baarwan Khiladi have been in full swing this week, rolling out a star studded team that includes co-producer Mahira Khan, who has collaborated with Nina Kashif for this project. Both Mahira and Nina, along with director Adnan Sarwar and headline cast Danyal Zafar, Shahveer Jafri, Khaqan Shahnawaz, Zarrar Khan, Meer Yousuf and Kinza Hashmi, have been touring colleges, universities and morning shows for the series that premieres on March 5 on OTT platform, TAPMAD.

This particular press junket took place at the Pearl Continental in Karachi and presented several teasers which gave more insight to the story.

Shot primarily in Lahore and using the game of cricket as its premise, Baarwan Khiladi is essentially the coming of age story of several young boys who find their passion in the sport. It’s all about dreams and the struggle to achieve the impossible, friendship and rivalry, social disparity and its problems and much more. One sees YouTuber Shahveer Jafri make an acting debut as a spoilt rich brat while Danyal Zafar steps in as a young lad from the lower middle class; he’s the one relegated to the back bench.

Cameos from Sarmad Khoosat and Fawad Khan, seen in teasers, add to the anticipation.

The series will premiere this weekend, and – the producers informed – two episodes will release each week. All you have to do is pay PKR199 for a TAPMAD subscription. When asked why the series was taken to OTT and not TV, the team responded that several reasons included the increase of censorship on TV channels. Baarwan Khiladi would pan out as a more real, unsanitised story. Moreover, it was reiterated that while brands chose what one watches on TV (the curse of TRPs), people got to choose what they want to watch on OTT so it’s a much needed shift in viewer dynamic.

Osman Khalid Butt on challenging the courts over Qandeel Baloch
murderer

Actor Osman Khalid Butt, who challenged the courts and filed a constitutional petition against the acquittal of the brother/murderer of Qandeel Baloch recently spoke to Instep about why he chose to do so.

“One of the major questions arising from the LHC judgment that acquitted Qandeel Baloch’s murderer was that despite his voluntary surrender, multiple confessions in a police press conference and in front of a magistrate, despite circumstantial, forensic and medical evidence backing said confession, how was the murder excluded from the ambit of honor killing?”

Observing what a dangerous precedent could be set by such an acquittal for all ongoing and future cases, he noted, “because what evidence – even when the confession has been declared inadmissible – if not from the current case would suffice to deem it as an honor crime?”

“We are hoping that the Supreme Court dilates upon the points raised meticulously by Barrister Khadija Siddiqi in the petition and restores our faith in the criminal justice system. The anti-honor-killing law needs to be absolute, sans any loopholes, so there is no regressive interpretation of it to exonerate criminals. To reduce what is clearly a case of gender-based violence to the death of a ‘celebrity’ is regrettable.”