This Pakistani news debate is hilarious

If you thought Indian news reports and debates often border on the bizarre, you need to watch some of what makes it to Pakistani news. One thing that caught our eye recently is the “selfie row” involving Qandeel Baloch, famously known as the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan.

Basically, Baloch put up selfies with a high-ranking cleric in Pakistan, Mufti Abdul Qavi, on Facebook. Mufti Qavi is a member of the moon-sighting committee (yes, there is such a thing and its job is to decide the starting and ending dates of the holy month of Ramzan).

The selfies had Baloch pouting next to the Mufti, wearing his hat and that was enough for the country’s Religious Affairs Ministry, yes that’s a thing too, to show him the door.

Twitter, too, obviously got talking.

Following the controversy, Baloch and Mufti Qavi appeared on a debate together on Pakistani news channel, 24 News, on June 22, to make some hilarious TV news programming. One of the main questions discussed by the panel was whether the cleric was an admirer of ‘husn’ (beauty) and, if yes, then is it okay to be one. The anchor grilled Mufti Qavi for apparently stating that he looks for pretty faces every time he’s at an airport. An audio clip is played as proof to which the Mufti cites a verse as justification. Baloch then makes an outlandish claim that the cleric had told her of “going to Bollywood” and meeting Kareena Kapoor in a “bedroom”. The anchor, then, asked Baloch to not bring up such things on his show.

You have to watch this to believe it: