LAHORE: Known TV and stage comedian Iftikhar Thakur has plans to build a hospital at his native town Mian Channu for the children suffering from thalassaemia.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Thakur said he wanted to build a state-of-the-art facility that would provide free of cost treatment to the children with thalassaemia. He said that work on the hospital that would also provide liver transplant facility to the patients in need, would begin in January 2021.

He said he decided to build the facility when doing charity work in a hospital in Multan, he felt that there was a lack of treatment facilities for children with thalassaemia in the country. “When I worked on this subject, I came to know that there were mobile hospitals for such children [in some countries]”.

He said that later during a show in the United Kingdom (UK), he appealed for donations for a mobile hospital, adding that responding to his appeal one of his fans donated funds for the facility that was working here. Mr Thakur said that only in south Punjab, there were over 25,000 children registered as thalassaemia patients.

He said he held late journalists, poet and playwright Munno Bhai in high esteem who established the Sundas Foundation for thalassaemia children.

Born at Mian Channu, Iftikhar Thakur did his matriculation from Karachi and graduation from Islamabad. He also studied at the New York Film Academy, for which he gives credit to senior actor Kavi Khan. “The credit for my education in USA goes to my senior Kavi Khan who took me there along,” he said. He said his seniors including Suhail Ahmed, Khalid Abbas Dar, Irfan Khusat, Waseem Abbas and Umar Sharif contributed a lot to his career as a comedian.

To a question, he suggested that to bring improvement in the local commercial theatre, there should be proper script scrutiny committees to eliminate “vulgar content”.

To another question regarding the Artist Support Fund, he suggested that the government should create job opportunities for the artistes, instead of giving them Rs5,000 per month scholarships.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2020