Islamabad, Aug 9 (ANI): The recent incident of a woman being harassed at the Nairang Gallery in Lahore, Pakistan, is among numerous such incidents that indicate the tendency of growing Talibanisation in the city.
According to an Express Tribune editorial, a senior police official barged into the gallery last week and harassed and assaulted a woman, later accusing her of wearing improper clothes and labelled the gallery's work as 'fahashi' (vulgarity).
According to eyewitness, the official-a local SHO, initially slammed a couple for sitting together, and later barged into a rehearsal of a Bharatanatyam dance performance, and assaulted the female curator of the gallery after being asked why he was intruding in the activities of the gallery.
His brutality did not stop there, with reports saying that when the gallery owner's son enquired about the misconduct of the police official, he was taken to the local police station and "hung upside down". Later he was released.
The Punjab government, however, has not been able to deal with this situation, or change the attitude the special police force so far.
These incidents lead to a question whether freedom to run cultural institutions without the 'ideological' endorsement of the state is possible anymore, the editorial said.
The editorial also says that Pakistan's civil society and progressive voices in the media should guard the shrinking public spaces to ensure that no infiltration takes place in the civil and military institutions. (ANI)
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