After state-owned station PTV Sports made an insensitive joke on social media criticizing cricketer Azam Khan’s weight, many celebrities have rushed to his defense.
Khan was a member of the Pakistan cricket squad that recently defeated England at Trent Bridge in the inaugural Twenty20 International. While many people celebrated the team’s victory on social media, a surprising number of individuals also made jokes about Khan and body-shamed him.
PTV Sports, even more surprisingly, made a derogatory remark against Khan on its Facebook and Instagram accounts. Khan was photographed and captioned “He eats a lot but doesn’t hit much” on the PTV Sports timeline. Since then, the post has been removed.
PTV Sports was chastised by many individuals, including several well-known celebrities, for the rude remark.
Actor and composer Haroon Shahid posted a screenshot of the PTV Sports comment on his Instagram story and wrote. “At first I thought this is some fake page running under the name of PTV Sports. To my surprise, it wasn’t! Is this how we are going to ridicule our players?!”
Ali Ansari also chastised the channel for its remark.
Actor Adnan Siddiqui strongly criticized PTV Sports and said, “Absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. People at PTV Sports need immediate lessons insensitivity.”
Absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. People at #PTVSports need immediate lessons in sensitivity. #stopbodyshaming pic.twitter.com/7mX4gjjmrC
— Adnan Siddiqui (@adnanactor) July 19, 2021
Actor Faizan Shaikh commented on the post to protest against the comment. “Shame on you,” he wrote. “Making fun of national players! Body shaming a player who is representing your country on the highest level. No wonder your quality has gone down the drain.”
Actor Faysal Quraishi also took to the Instagram story to call out the post. “Shame on you,” he wrote.
PTV Sports has now removed the post from their social media sites, however, they have yet to issue an official apology for their offensive remark against Khan.
During the match, there was a lot of body shaming on Twitter, and it shows how insensitive we are as a nation.
