Actor Syeda Tuba Anwar recently spoke out against violence against women and has admitted that she has been the target of rape and murder threats.
In a podcast teaser, Tuba discussed her ordeal and the threats she received from zealots. The late televangelist and politician Aamir Liaquat’s ex-wife recalled feeling vulnerable in the face of such campaigns.
She mentioned having to cope with nasty online and offline trolling, labeling her as naive to handle the humiliating trends. According to Tuba, she never considered how the general public would respond before starting the connection.
In response to scandalous efforts, she stated that it was acceptable to utilize another person as a stepping stone to stardom. In order to shed light on her divorce, Tuba stated she had to go through a lot. She also noted that divorce is still stigmatized in society, and she had no idea she would have to go through such anguish.
Social media users criticized Tuba for being a “house wrecker” of the well-known politician who passed away last year after she was linked to one of them.
Last year she discussed the problematic culture of victim blaming in an interview with BBC Urdu. The former wife of late televangelist Aamir Liaquat Hussain, has been quite vocal about how violence against women often ends up in harsh victim blaming instead of a strong judicial support system in the country.
The starlet started campaigning for awareness regarding Noor Mukadam’s case especially because she could “relate” to the experience.
While opening up about supporting the late Noor Mukadam , the Bichoo star said, “Noor Mukadam’s incident was one such incident which came at the point when I was going through a lot in my life, I could connect to Noor on another level, I had never met Noor but I felt very deeply for her, because there were a lot of things which I faced, probably, I can’t tell all things, I don’t know why people victim blame in our society.”
Syeda added, “I believe I should raise my voice to educate people and I will keep on doing that”.
“There’s a norm of victim blaming in our society. I don’t understand why it happens, to be honest, maybe it’s a lack of education or perhaps awareness, but I feel like it is my responsibility as a public figure to aware people of what’s happening around them. If around such sensitive topics, even if one person learns or unlearns their toxic behaviours from me, then I feel like my purpose is complete,” she added about the need to make people aware of how blaming the victim only makes the problem worse.
Tuba also addressed cyber trolling on social media. She is often trending on social media for various reasons, mostly connected to her ex-husband and her negative roles on television. Speaking about how she deals with the heavy doses of negative trolling from social media, she said, “When this all started, I’d get very emotional and I couldn’t process why people were doing that to me. It still happens sometimes but you know, I often think about how all of us in our lives dislike people around us but for people to actually open their social media and type out curses for me, I can only imagine how much negativity they store within them. I think all of us should think 100 times before writing anything about how our words can impact someone.”
She further emphasised that it’s not just her who faces negative trolling, no other celebrity is spared. “It’s not just me. I’ll open any celebrity’s page, and there will be at least one comment that spews hate for them and has a curse word in it. Some people just have it worse.”
Tuba’s comment garnered backlash from fellow actor Mathira.
Mathira grilled the newbie and said that Aamir helped her in creating a name in the entertainment industry and hence Tuba should be thankful to him rather than “seeking attention.” She said the Bisaat actress should learn to respect and forgive the deceased.
In response to the Blind Love diva’s remarks, Anwar clapped back at Mathira on Instagram for making false assumptions. Anwar said that Mathira should check the complete interview and she should think before meddling in others’ personal lives. Tuba also revealed that she called Mathira to clarify things but the host didn’t take up her call.
