TV 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, a bespectacled 41-year-old 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 in a talk show called 'Amaan Ramazan'.
"If we didn't find this baby, a cat or a dog would have eaten it," Hussain proclaimed during one broadcast, before presenting a tiny girl wrapped in pink and red to her new parents. The audience erupted with applause.
But 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.
A childless couple kisses their newly adopted daughter, Fatima, whom Aamir Liaquat Hussain gave them on his show.
The abandoned babies were rescued by the Chhipa Welfare Association, a Pakistani aid organisation.
"In a day or two, the next baby will be given away, God willing," its head, Ramzan Chhipa, told Reuters on Thursday.
While the Chhipa teams scour the garbage dumps and other sites for discarded newborns, Hussain is also appealing for babies directly.
"If any family cannot afford to bring up their new born 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 reads. The children would be given to deserving couples on air, the notice said.
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