Shahzad Rasheed
The artists set up a protest camp outside Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday against the provincial government for not paying monthly stipend to them.
The protesting artists threatened to stage sit-in outside the residence of Prime Minister Imran Khan in Banigala, if government failed to pay them the monthly stipend.
Artists and Literati criticized the Directorate of Culture for withholding their monthely stipends for the last six months. They said, officials of the KP Directorate of Culture had deffered payment of the monthely stipends after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa asked it to submit the record of the programme.
Senior Film and TV Actors Asif Khan, Babar Javed, Zulfiqar Qureshi, Zar Mohammad, Imtiaz Ahmad and Iffat Siddiqui were also present on the occasion. They were holding banners and placards inscribed with their demands. They also chanted slogans against the provincial culture department and demanded inquiry into delay of payment.
The criteria for selection was that artists belonging to television, radio, performing art, writers, poets, visual arts and singers having 15 years of experience were entitled for this monthly stipend. Around three thousand artists applied for it but only 500 were selected after scrutiny.
The renowned and senior actress Riffat Siddiqi, said, “The incumbent government just played with the sentiments of the artist community of KP as many senior artists spent their whole life in the showbiz world. These stipends were for the welfare of the artist community. We got the second phase stipends of only two months and since then it has been stopped. We have not gotten the last seven months stipends.” She further said that the government should not make such promises that could not be fulfilled.
She said that some of the actors and actresses moved court against the committee formed by provincial government to select genuine artists for the stipend. He said that the court also delivered a verdict in their favor but the government was yet to implement the order of the court.