Islamabad, being the capital city of the country, is supposed to be ideal in terms of the provision of avenues of entertainment, yet it falls severely short of this ideal as it has no cinema house, which is considered a major source of entertainment.
The closed doors of Kohsar cinema are a grim echo of the terrorist activities in the federal capital, particularly the Lal mosque incident and the effects of rising inflation on cultural activities. All the cinemas in the federal capital have been closed down for over a decade.
A Capital Development Authority (CDA) official told that in the late 1960s the CDA developed the cinema houses and handed them to investors or subsidised the cost under amenities headings to provide entertainment to citizens. He said that the first cinema house was established in Melody Market. He said after the Melody Cinema, Nafdec I and II were set up in 1974 and Kohsar Cinema was the third cinema in Islamabad.
“But prevailing extremism and inflation has lead to the closure of all the movie houses,” he informed. “The concerned authorities should establish new cinemas and provide security for them,” said Jamil Kashif, a shopkeeper in the vicinity of Kohsar cinema. He said their business was also at its peak when the cinema was not closed. Muhammad Hameed, a resident of the area, said he had to go Rawalpindi to watch movies as his own city did not have a cinema.
However, most cinema house owners have merged their cinemas into marriage halls or storage houses. Kohsar Cinema Owner Mian Taj told Pakistan Today that besides terrorism, the concerned authorities’ apathy also played a crucial role in cinema business plummeting. He said the Punjab government imposed a 100 percent tax on the cinema houses after which it became difficult for them to run the film houses.
“How can we run our business after the imposition of such a huge tax, it really befuddles the mind of any trader,” he said. He added that security concerns were another issue which marred the cinema business. He was of the view, however, that cinema houses were the cheapest way of entertainment for people.
When asked whether any government authority had contacted him about reviving cinema culture in the capital and reopening their cinema houses, he said no one had approached him to reopen the cinema house, adding that the business no longer had scope in the country and very few cinema houses could survive ever since extremism had taken over the country.
Prevailing extremism, authorities’ apathy cause cinemas’ downfall
