Daily Times

The Jhoom singer, Ali Zafar, addressed the recent disturbing video of a girl being tortured by her class-fellows from a private school in Lahore and recalled his own similar experience.

In the video, four teen girls are seen pinning their classmate to the ground by the hair while verbally abusing her and demanding her to “say sorry”.

Talking about the incident, the famous Pakistani singer and actor, Ali Zafar, took to his Twitter and shared his own bullying experience from college days.

Taking to his social media, the Teefa in Trouble actor described the bullying culture as a ‘menace’ and said, “We need to develop a deeper understanding of what makes a bully in order to address the issue and put an end to it.” Later in a Twitter thread, the singer recalled his first experience with bullying, saying it happened at the National College of Arts, Lahore, on the day of the admission interview. He said, “A girl, who I don’t wish to name and was probably a year senior, sat next to me & started to make fun of my hair & jacket. It felt like she was enabled by her privileged background to ridicule me and destroy my self-esteem just before the interview. The words she used stuck.”

In another tweet, he wrote “One of them started to spread malicious rumours, including one about me and a dear friend of mine that we had an affair – this was particularly damaging, especially for the girl. I’m sure many who’ve gone through college and university can understand this dynamic & politics.”

The Maula singer stated that he shared a very personal story for the first time in order to help raise awareness on this issue and put an end to the culture of bullying, which can have long-term trauma effects whether verbal or physical.

To stop such treatment, he said, “We must also deepen our understanding of the mind of a bully and the psychology behind what motivates them, in order to properly address it.”

“We must understand the source of this behaviour in order to make meaningful change,” the singer added. Previously, several celebrities, including Ahsan Khan, Ahmad Butt, Yashma Gill and many others condemned the toxic culture of school bullying.