Picky foodie: Do not send me back to the asylum, says petitioner

‘My family is forcing me to go to a mental asylum for complaining about their cooking’.

LAHORE:

An additional district and sessions judge on Wednesday directed the Lower Mall station house officer not to harass the petitioner on the behest of his family who claimed that he was mentally ill for complaining that they did not cook tasty food.

Petitioner Kashif Zaman said that his family had pronounced him mentally unstable for complaining about the food they cooked at home. “I want to eat tasty food but the food cooked at my house is barely palatable,” he told the court. He said he had complained about the taste to his mother several times but she had not bothered to improve her cooking.

Zaman said he had suffered his family’s terrible cooking for almost two years but then they started saying he was mentally ill because he wouldn’t stop complaining about the food.

He said his family had sent sent him to “Panaah” (translated refuge) for mentally disturbed people for treatment. However, the mental asylum sent him back home because there was nothing wrong with his mental state, he said.



“Now my family is forcing me to go back to the mental asylum,” he said. “Some people from the asylum too have been harassing me to return there.” Zaman said that his family had even approached the police to force him to return to the mental asylum. He said that the Lower Mall station house officer had been harassing him. He requested the court to direct the SHO  and his family not to harass him. The court ruled in his favour and directed the SHO not to harass him.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2014.