Karachi: The right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami has begun covering up with black banners Katrina Kaif's Veet ad hoardings throughout Karachi.
Messages like "Sell clothes, not your honour" have been found scrawled on the banners covering up Katrina Kaif's ad hoarding, Pak media reports.
"The banners have been put on billboards by hired men", said a Jamaat-e-Islami activist to the Pakistani daily The Express Tribune.
Outdoor advertisers in Karachi said: 'It is common for political and religious parties to take over billboards. If we remove their banners, they call and threaten us."
At different sites, pictures of models in lawn advertisements have been blacked out and banners have been torn down in Karachi, the report said.
Former chief of Society of Advertisers Mashood Merchant asked why the ire was being directed at billboards one.
"The same models appear in TV ads in the same clothes. They should be stopped first."
Karachi Municipal Corporation rules on this issue are vague. According to clause 5-1(3) on the use of billboards, anything that is deemed vulgar or upsets any segment of society is prohibited, says the Express Tribune report.
Said a KMC official: "This is tricky. Now it can be anyone's guess what is vulgar and otherwise. Is showing arms, the back or the neck nudity? I can't say."
Even Pakistani actress Meera's lux ad hoarding also met the same fate.
The "blackening" campaign is supposed to be launched by a little-heard organization called Women Education Society and the Women Professional Forum though no one has taken the onus for it as yet.
Says Meera's Indian publicist Dale Bhagwagar, "Recently a US study is said to have rated Pakistan's youth leading in watching porn on the Net.
"Now there's nothing wrong in watching porn. Even I watch it.
"But why have double standards and blacken posters and hoardings when the country's youth is itching to grow up?
"Moral policing the roads in the age of the internet is like asking your toddler not to speak to the neighboring toddler because she has a doll resembling a sex toy.
"It just doesn't work. In any case, showing off a little skin with a sleeveless blouse or a backless dress, couldn't be reason enough to black out posters and hoardings," he added.
