Quetta Video Scandal: A closer look with Afeefa Rao

Baaghi TV: Pakistani journalist Afeefa Rao shared case reports on the 6 tragic incidents that occurred over a course of one week in Pakistan, specifically the Quetta video scandal in her recent video.

Taking to YouTube, Afeefa Rao who is a producer of the popular talk show “Khara Sach with Lucman”, shared her views on Twitter’s top trends in Pakistan. She revealed that Pakistan has been trending on Twitter as a result of the heinous incidents that occurred over the course of a single week. Crime cases originating from the major cities of Pakistan have once again tarnished the country’s reputation in the face of the world.

This series of Twitter trends began surfacing after the Sialkot lynching incident where a Sri Lankan national was dreadfully murdered by factory workers. Recently, social media trends have highlighted yet another tragedy that took place in the capital of Balochistan and began catching spotlight soon after the Sialkot incident. Unfortunately, the Quetta case was registered on December 2nd, 2021 but the mainstream media remained silent about it. Press conferences were held by the local police as well as by the social worker Hameeda, but it failed to attract attention. The incident started gaining concern after Quetta began trending on social media, notably on December 10th after which the public began realizing the gravity of the situation.

The Faisalabad incident where 4 women were stripped naked in front an electric store was also a black spot on Pakistan’s dignity. Although it was later revealed through CCTV footages that the women had torn their clothes by themselves and later confessed to their shameful acts. Still it was seen that there was no one amongst the bystanders to try to stop the proceedings as many videos surfaced the media soon after. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Faisalabad say that such incidents are becoming quite usual in the city.

Afeefa Rao further highlighted that amongst these mainstream incidents several others were also reported. One such case occurred in Karachi, where an innocent student named Arsalan Masood was killed by the police in a fake encounter. This case shares a striking similarity to that of Naqib Ullah Masood, where the police tried to justify his murder saying that he was involved with a terrorist group but the case still remains unsolved to this day.

Another incident took place in Mangal Bazaar Sargodha, where a women who had set up a stall encountered a group of men who demanded extortion which she could not pay. On her refusal, the men used petrol to set fire to the poor woman. The victim is now in Jinnah Hospital Lahore in a critical condition.

In addition to these incidents, another incident surfaced the media. In this incident several videos were shared on media platforms, where female students were performing a dance during a national college festival in Hasilpur, a city near Bahawalpur. The unethical videos showed female students dancing on the stage with the audience tossing money over the dancers. The organizers repeatedly claimed that male students had cross dressed as females and performed the dances while all faculty was enjoying the event and no one considered it as a wrongdoing. This event was similar to the Jamia Barani incident which occurred during the end of November this year and caused a significant uproar in the Punjab Assembly. However, the repetition of such events is due to the negligence on part of the authorities.

In her video, Afeefa Rao is seen emphasizing over the course of events that happened in the Quetta video scandal where several videos featuring women doing unethical acts were secured from a laptop belonging to a man named Hidayat Ullah Khilji. It was reported by a women who approached the police on December 2nd claiming that two of her daughters who were kidnapped two years ago are still missing. She had been visiting the police before but it was to no avail, therefore, she brought videos of her missing daughters claiming that Hidayat Ullah Khilji had kidnapped them, made shameful videos and shared those on social media to blackmail them. Afterwards, the police arrested Hidayat Ullah along with his brother Khalil Ullah Khilji and are still searching for their accomplice, Shani Khilji. The police are stating that the kidnapped girls are located in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Thus in addition to crimes such as kidnapping, sexual assault and making videos, this case also presents human trafficking or smuggling whereby girls are forced into prostitution and transported across the border. This series of heinous acts starts with a fake job proposal leading to the capture of young women. The police reports retrieval of videos showing 200 girls and number definitely exceeds this count to 500 girls.

Afeefa Rao says that it is extremely unfortunate that these notorious men show no fear when arrested. It is noteworthy that Hidayat Ullah Khilji’s grandfather Habib Ullah Khilji was an infamous drug dealer and smuggler. Hameeda Hazara has held press conferences but when she tried to meet the Chief Minister and other prominent personalities, she was simply turned down. Those highlighting this issue on social media have received threats and have been blackmailed various times in order to protect the culprits.