Pakistani reality media. An unregulated entity, causes death of a contestant

[Kursed]

I don't see why this news hasn't been broken on the mainstream media. But given the nature of the incident, I do not think that it's hard to look beyond the obvious and see why.

A 32 year old Karachiite, going by the name of Saeed Khan (a banker working at RBS) was recently killed during the filming of a reality tv show, sponsored by Unilever Pakistan and produced by their advertising arm; Mindshare.

He was given a challenge to perform an underwater task, while having his foot tied to a certain weight. And, he had to do it while holding his breath. Due to the lack of any proper emergency services at the scene of the incident, the victim drowned, while people watched his ordeal for '6' minutes, waiting for him to come back up.

Here is the detail on what happened in the aftermath of his death on Teeth Maestro's blog.

Aarpix: These details are given by a 2nd cousin of Saad on the condition of anonymity. Saad was 31, 6′2″, handsome man was employed at RBS (formerly ABN AMRO). Saad live a very ambitious and thrilled life. In his professional life, he had accomplished more than his age. He had well established career and didn’t participate for the prize money or anything. He was rather very thrilling and adventurous. He was disqualified from the show after a few days but was then called by the death on a wild card entry.

He did not lose his balance in the water – he was an excellent swimmer but the doctors in Thailand after carrying out an autopsy told that his muscle had pulled and he had some weight tied up to his feet as part of the challenge and so could not make it back up. He was under water for about 6 minutes.
Saad has left a widow and 4 kids: Oldest one is 7 years old, then twins of age 5.5 and then the youngest who is only 1.5 years of age.

While this story is slowly making its way around, it seems that some serious counter efforts were made against Farhan Janjua of Aarpix, who first broke the story, WebHostingPad suddenly issued Aarpix a short notice disabling his website for “nature of content” [do have a look at Aarpix and see if you find any objectionable material] they then told Farhan to quickly move his data with immediate effect or else they will delete his content [4 years of hard work] – panicking the poor chap found a local friend willing to help him, but as soon as the DNS prorogation started ’someone’ called Farhan’s friend and asked questions about Aarpix and if they can possibly ‘have the owners cell phone number’ worrying for the safety of his friends Farhan resolved to buy a sever internationally and used their support services to help salvage the at-risk data. As I write this post at 2am Aarpix is slowly coming back online.

I strongly believe these scare tactics must be condemned, Unilever/Mindshare should be held accountable for this accident and must be forced to offer compensation to the grieved family with immediate effect.

I do not mean merely doling out a paltry 1 lac rupees to the affected family but stress a far more expensive compensation to widow and the four kids who now have a life to live without the primary bread earner and literally no husband or father to look after them. May Allah give them the courage and patience to recover from this tragic incident

Teeth Maestro

[Trekker]

Very sad indeed. Well the incident took place in Thailand, so the family should lodge a complaint with Thai police against Unilever, coz lodging a complaint here in Pakistan wouldn't do any good... but I guess Unilever would have been smart enough to have the contestants sign a waiver form.. dunno if that'll hold in a court of law.

But this is very tragic. Why did they not have divers in the water with oxygen tanks?

[An_igma]

That’s crazy... how can they just throw people into the water with a weight tied to their feet, then stand and wait outside to see if they can make it or not? It was just common sense to have at least one diver under water to keep an eye on contestants … I can’t believe it.

[Cateye]

Bloody Reality shows....

[babarhyd]

WoW! thats very sad!

[Dr.Farhan]

Damnn....

[noman]

why did the foool go into the reality show?? that also a pakistani show...where u can not expect the normal...

[luv2xlr8]

this makes me want to kill that A hole from living on the edge show !!

[Dr.Farhan]

^^That Bastard

@noman
When you live in a poor country, with no money, and as many kids ashis, you eventually end up selling your kidney to fed them all... a game show on the other hand is a very very feasible and safer option..

However, apparently they are not...

[AhmedKhan]

Originally Posted by Dr.Farhan

^^That Bastard

@noman
When you live in a poor country, with no money, and as many kids ashis, you eventually end up selling your kidney to fed them all... a game show on the other hand is a very very feasible and safer option..

However, apparently they are not...

As usual, you haven't read the post. He wasn't "poor". He worked for RBS and did quite well. He didn't do this for prize money but for thrill and adventor.

[Dr.Farhan]

that also a pakistani show...where u can not expect the normal...

Most people on game reality shows, usually go for the money/... That was what the question was, and that was the answer.. it had nothing to do with this guy..So please keep your sorry ass commentary to yourself..


Its still his own responsibility... if he seeks so much thrill, he should have gone bungee jumping, parachute diving, getting married twice or more etc...


@topic

here is an alternate aproach to this incident, posted by a member of WCCK "Taliban"..

PS : its HIS post,.. HIS opinions..

WCCK Forums - View Single Post - The Sad truth about UNILEVER

[superfrog]

It seems that the media here is being shut up by Unilever or you get such stupid news these days that you wouldn't believe your eyes on the standard of journalism these days.

[Dr.Farhan]

it WASNT unlilever fault.. it was the show crew that was at fault..

its just like i pay you to go feed 10 people,, if you feed them or give them poison, YOU would be at fault, not me..(just an example)..

[nofel]

^it was a person's fault . us ko apney bachon ka khayal nahin tha? pathetic person.

[Kursed]

If Unilever doesn't punish those negligent of performing their duties, then it's them at fault.