A screenwriter went viral for suggesting women should abduct and rape men. Now he says he has been kidnapped

Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar once invited women to kidnap and rob men ‘so that I can understand what you mean by equality’

Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar (YouTube)

A Pakistani screenwriter infamous for making sexist and anti-feminist remarks has alleged he was abducted and tortured by a gang of thieves after he went to visit a woman late at night.

According to a report filed at the Sundar police station in Lahore, Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar received a phone call on 15 July from a woman who identified herself as Amna Urooj. She was a fan of Mr Qamar, she said, and wanted to make a TV drama together, Pakistani daily Dawn reported.

Mr Qamar went to Ms Urooj’s residence at 4.40am.

Shortly after his arrival, there was a knock at the door and seven armed men rushed in, he alleges in the police complaint. They proceeded to search Mr Qamar, taking his national identity card, his ATM card, an iPhone 11 and PKR60,000 (£170).

“I was sitting with the woman when someone knocked on the door and the woman told me that it might be some delivery boy as she had ordered some food,” Mr Qamar said in the police report.

The armed men forced him to reveal his PIN and withdrew PKR267,000 (£740) from his account. They then demanded a ransom of PKR10 million, saying they had orders to kill him.

After Mr Qamar said he did not have that kind of money, he was handed over to five other men. They took him to a deserted location and demanded he call a friend to bring the ransom amount, he said. When his friend was unable to do so, Mr Qamar said the men blindfolded him, assaulted him and abandoned him there.

Mr Qamar is a controversial figure in Pakistan, having repeatedly made sexist and derogatory statements about women in the past. In 2019 he went viral for suggesting there would only be equality between the sexes when women could kidnap and rape men.

“If you wish to strive for equality then kidnap men as well. Rob a bus, gang rape a man so that I can understand what you mean by equality,” he told Entertainment Pakistan.

On a talk show in 2023, Mr Qamar said women should stay with their male partners even if they are cheated on, and that the only agency women have in a relationship is “their loyalty”.

“It is a man’s instinct to cheat. How many men will you leave? Else manufacture an ideal man if you want. Women have to control men with their loyalty,” he said.

He also said he doesn’t support the idea of men and women studying together because it leads to “more supply” of women, which distracts men and undermines their education.

In 2020, he came under fire for insulting activist Marvi Sirmed after she used the slogan “Mera jism, meri marzi”, meaning “My body, my choice”, at a women’s march. “No one would even spit on your body,” he told Sirmed, adding that she was a “cheap woman” who should “shut up”.

Mr Qamar has written for popular TV shows like Meray Pass Tum Ho and Pyare Afzal but has been criticised for the way he writes female characters.

Police have said that 12 suspects, including two women, have been arrested in relation to the alleged abduction, and all the items taken from Mr Qamar have been recovered. A Lahore court has approved three-day physical remand of the suspect being identified as Ms Urooj after police requested more time to question her on her alleged involvement, reported Geo TV.

Mr Qamar held a press conference on Monday to answer questions about his alleged abduction.

Asked why he went to meet a woman at 4.40am, Mr Qamar said she had been pestering him to visit her for days.

“I am sick and my doctor has strictly told me to not go out in the daytime for five years. Even if he hadn’t said that, we meet people at night and you don’t differentiate between men and women. When there’s no objection to me meeting men at night, then why should there be an objection to me agreeing to see this woman at the break of dawn?” the writer said according to Dawn.

“Because this happened at 4.40am, I had not agreed to go at night when I got the call. For the past 15 days, she was pestering me to see her.”

When a reporter said that Ms Urooj didn’t seem like the kind of woman who is usually cast in Pakistani dramas, Mr Qamar responded that he is familiar with the way women in his “field” dress and talk. “The girls in my field, the kind of clothes they wear and the way they talk, I’ve been seeing that for the past 27 years now. It’s nothing new to me,” he said.

Commenting on the news of the writer’s alleged kidnapping, a user posted on X: “What was Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar wearing when he was allegedly abducted? How revealing were his clothes? Why did he go out so late at night? Why was there no mahram (relative) accompanying him?”