Babies given away live on air in Pakistani talk show

Pakistani television is screening what many call its most controversial content yet in a ruthless quest for ratings: a talk show host who gives away babies live on air. Aamir Liaquat Hussain (41), bespectacled with a neatly trimmed beard, gave away two abandoned infant girls to childless families last month and plans to give away a baby boy this week.

“If we didn’t find this baby, a cat or a dog would have eaten it,” Hussain said during one broadcast, before presenting a tiny girl wrapped in pink and red to her new parents. The audience erupted with applause.

Hussain is one of Pakistan’s most popular talk show hosts. During his marathon broadcasts, he cooks, interviews clerics and celebrities, entertains children and hosts game shows. He usually gives prizes such as motorbikes, mobile phones and land deeds to audience members who answer questions about Islam. However, at the beginning of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, when television stations battle fiercely for ratings, Hussain astonished Pakistan when he presented two families with babies.

The abandoned babies were rescued by the Chhipa Welfare Association, a Pakistani aid organisation. Its head, Ramzan Chhipa, said this week.

While the Chhipa teams scour dumps and other sites for discarded newborns, Hussain is also appealing for babies directly. “If any family cannot afford to bring up their newborn baby due to poverty or illness, then instead of killing them, they should hand over the baby to Dr Aamir,” a notice on his website read.

Many Pakistanis expressed disgust that abandoned babies were being given away in what they see as an attempt to boost ratings.

Chhipa insisted thousands of people wanted a baby and all potential parents were properly vetted. The true outrage, he said, was the poverty forcing families to abandon children.

Hussain’s show is one of many such broadcasts. The Pakistani media has flourished over the past decade or so following the liberalisation of the industry, particularly broadcasting, after decades of tight state control.

A recent programme included a female anchor stalking couples in a park to challenge their morality.

In 2008, Hussain hosted scholars who called for the deaths of Ahmadis, a persecuted religious sect in Pakistan. Within a day, two prominent Ahmadis had been shot dead.

The year before, he had to resign from his post as junior minister for religious affairs after denouncing author Salman Rushdie for blasphemy, a crime punished by death in Pakistan. Since then, his university degree has been exposed as a fake and a video showing him making crude jokes with clerics between takes of his show has been leaked on to YouTube. – (Reuters)