MULTAN, Oct 27: The district administration has ruled out the possibility of giving permission to the six sealed theatres here to stage plays with female artistes on the cast.

According to an official handout issued on Monday, District Coordination Officer Muhammad Ijaz Chaudhry held a meeting with the local stage play producers, directors and artistes at the committee room of his office to discuss the situation.

The handout quoted the DCO as saying, “we are ready to de-seal all the local theatres, but on the assurance that the women artistes will not be part of the casts in the plays.” He added that the administration did not have enough force to keep monitoring the stage dramas.

“We neither have any personal enmity with anyone nor do we want to spurn anyone’s livelihood. However, laws are to be abided by at every cost.”

He also asked the theatre owners to apologize to the citizens for staging obscene plays and dances.

He also pledged to eliminate obscenity, insisting that “no one will be allowed to make a mockery of the code of ethics and religious values.”

He announced that the district administration would launch operation against the cinema houses, which had been picturising bad movies.

The DCO, the handout continued, had directed the producers and directors to submit details of the payments made to the artistes 20 days before the closure of theatres last week. According to the reports of officials agencies, the organizers (of stage plays) had been causing loss of millions of rupees to the exchequer by evading income tax and excise duty, he said.

He made it clear to them that their relevant office was the office of the DCO and in future they should keep in touch with only this office.

The handout quoted the stage drama producers and directors, who attended the meeting, as seeking apology for staging obscene plays. They also assured the DCO that in future they would follow the code of ethics. They told him that hundreds of people had been earning through this business.

When contacted, the DCO claimed to have proposed at the meeting that the only solution to check obscenity on the stage was to eliminate the role of women artistes from the plays.

As none of the theatres had licenses to stage plays, the DCO said, the administration had directed them to first seek licenses after which the other matters would be settled.