Actor Saba Qamar and singer Bilal Saeed have been granted an interim bail on Saturday after their music video, Qubool, got them in trouble with the authorities.
The court had issued pre-arrest bail in the case till August 25 against Rs50, 000 surety bonds collectively.
An FIR was registered against the two celebrities last week at the Akbari police station of Lahore on the complaint of advocate Farhat Manzoor. In the report, the act of filming a music video at the mosque has hurt the religious sentiments of the public, with many taking to social media to express their anger over the act.
The FIR has been registered under Section 295 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The music video which was directed by Saba Qamar and has her acting in it too, was written and composed by Bilal Saeed. A short clip of Qamar whirling with Saeed at the historic mosque went viral on social media with the video drawing strong reactions from religious circles.
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Saba responded to the criticism in a series of tweets, saying the clip was a “prologue to the music video featuring a Nikkah scene. It was neither shot with any sort of playback music nor has it been edited to the music track,” she said on Twitter.
Saeed also issued an apology over the video on his Instagram account, saying both he and Qamar “realise what has happened over the past few days has hurt sentiments deeply”.
Talking about the song, Saeed shared, “Saba Qamar and I had recently filmed a nikkah sequence at Wazir Khan Mosque which created a big misunderstanding and hurt the emotions of a lot of people. Many thought we were doing a dance sequence, which wasn’t true.”
He announced that he is removing the whole sequence shot and expressed that they did not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.