KARACHI, June 3: The Karachi office of the Central Board of Film Censor does not have the apparatus to play cinema movies.

However, official sources told Dawn on Sunday that the office did have the equipment to view video films. They added that the Karachi office of the Central Board of Film Censor, housed in a dilapidated building in Saddar, can only censor Pulse Global movies and documentaries.

“It is true that films are mostly made in Lahore, but the Karachi office should have the equipment to view cinema movies. A film-maker may shoot a movie in Lahore, or in the United States for that matter, but he should be able to have it censored in Karachi if he wants to,” an official said.

Official sources also point out that the 21-year-old censorship code, in light of which the Central Board of Film Censor judges locally produce films and import movies, is too generalized and vague to be useful.

Cinema industry veterans maintain that most guidelines are so abstract that they cover a multitude of sins. This, they argue, gives the censor board a lot of room to manoeuvre — to condone what may not be suitable for the impressionable audience and censor what may be an innocuous joke.

The official sources told Dawn that objectionable foreign movies were, at times, released by film distributors without the approval of the censor board. They contended that this explained why some English movies contained some excessively steamy scenes.

They added that while the fourth and fifth clause of the censorship code disallowed immorality, obscenity and nudity, their interpretation depended on the discretion of the members who were, sometimes, strict and at other times, lenient.

The film censor board consists of 19 members — five official members (government officials) and 14 non-official members.

The official members include: representative of the Inter- Services Public Relations, a person nominated by the Sindh home secretary, the education secretary, the law secretary and the director of press information.

The non-official members include: chairman or vice-chairman of the Pakistan Film Producers; Farhad Zaidi, former PTV managing director; Mehreen Jabbar, interior designer; Abdul Karim Baloch, former PTV general manager; Qazi Obaidullah, chief executive officer of Adamjee Insurance; Abdul Hinan Mirza, former vice- president of Habib Bank; Haider Buksh Shaikh, former district and sessions judge; Ferzana Rehman, president of the Ladies Forum; Dilpit Arsanaweria, a representative of the minorities; Syed Kamal, actor; Shakil Ahmed Abbasi, registrar of the copyright department; Hameed Haroon; Pervez Samuel, a retired colonel and Shazia Hasan Sardar, daughter of the late singing legend, Madame Noor Jehan.

The film censorship code also contains a clause about the titles of movies. The ninth clause of the code states: “...a film shall be regarded as unsuitable for public exhibition if, directly or indirectly, it presents indecent, obscene or profane titles or which directly or indirectly focus upon or glorify notorious characters in society amounting to the commission of, or incitement to, an offence or which has the effect of conveying hatred or contempt for a certain section of the people on cultural or ethnic grounds.”

A cinema owner told Dawn that under this rule, the censor board should not have allowed many titles, such as Mard Jeenay Nahin Daitay and Shikari Haseena.