Jhang civil society complains about lack of cultural activities, entertainment.

Byline: Q.A. Bukhari

JHANG -- Civil society and the general public have lamented the lack of entertainment and recreational facilities in the city.

Talking to Dawn, Qamar Abbas Zaidi, a district representative of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, was particularly critical of the situation. His views were echoed by Munir Ahmad Sadhana, a former president of the Jhang District Bar Association.

Mr Zaidi said that Jhang city had suffered tremendously during the '90s from sectarian strife, and needed a whiff of fresh air in the form of cultural and recreational activities. 'There is no concept of theatre in the city, whereas theatre is flourishing in the nearby cities of Faisalabad and Chiniot. Jhang has produced marvelous folk singers such as Mansoor Malangi, Talib Hussain Dard, Mohsin Jhangvi and Allah Ditta Lonaywala, who have fans not just in Pakistan, but also across the border, in Europe, US, Canada and Gulf states, or wherever Punjabi and Urdu-speaking people lived. But there have been no concerts in Jhang featuring these legends,' he lamented.

He further said that Jhang boasts of tremendous talent, but they could not get any exposure in their home city. Some renowned poets born here included Jafar Tahir, Sher Afzal Jaffery, Ram Riaz and the revolutionary poet-politician Safdar Saleem Sail. They have been invited to several mushairas in the country, but the people of Jhang have not had the good fortune to listen to them in such a gathering in the last three decades.

The civil society representatives also complained that Jhang was perhaps the only or one of the very few districts without a cinema. In 1947, they went on, there were three cinemas here, while one was added in the mid-70s...