June 7, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1424

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MULTAN, June 6: Shabab-i-Milli Pakistan activists defaced the pictures of female models on some of the billboards here on Friday as part of their “anti-obscenity campaign”.

The youth organization’s divisional and district office- bearers had set June 6 as the deadline for removal of female faces from billboards in the city at a press conference a few days ago. Answering phone calls in a programme organized by a local Urdu daily the other day, Multan DPO Hamid Mukhtar Gondal had warned that anyone who tried to damage the billboards would be dealt with an iron hand.

But on Thursday, Shabab-i-Milli had announced that its activists were going to deface the pictures of women models on billboards set up at the city’s Kumharanwala Chowk on Friday.

A police contingent arrived at the scene before the protesters. The protesters were around 30 young and not-so-young men, who also included clean-shaved youth wearing jeans and tee-shirts.

Their first target was the signboards of a beverage company, followed by those of a ‘paan supari’ and a tobacco company. They however left the faces of male models untouched.

The police stayed on the sidelines and the protesters were free to shift ladders from one signboard to another to purge the billboards of female faces.

The inspector leading the police contingent was of the view that the law-enforcement agents could intervene only if the protesters damaged public property. When reminded that the firms concerned must have paid rent to the local bodies for their billboards, he said he was conveying the moment-by-moment report to his high-ups and action could be taken only on their orders.

Speaking on the occasion, Shabab-i-Milli’s divisional president Saad Kanju, son of Jamaat-i-Islami’s provincial Naib Amir Khursheed Kanju, said Islam was under attack on three fronts — defence capability, economy and values.

He alleged that multi-national companies were attacking Islamic values by using women models for the promotion of their products. He vowed that his organization would fight against this trend without fearing about arrests and detentions. He said the Shabab-Milli would also move the court against companies that did not refrain from using female models to publicize their products.