Sindh

T2F to open doors to public Sunday onwards

The café had been shut after the deadly attack on Sabeen Mahmud on April 24

Our Correspondent May 01, 2015

Sabeen Mahmud.

KARACHI: The Second Floor (T2F) café will open its doors from Sunday, announced PeaceNiche chairperson and mother of slain Sabeen Mahmud, Mahenaz Mahmud, in a press statement on Friday.

Sabeen, the founder of T2F and director of non-for-profit organisation PeaceNiche, was shot dead on April 24 in DHA when she was returning home after hosting a talk by Baloch activists on missing persons. Mahenaz, who was with her, had sustained injuries.

Following the deadly attack on Sabeen, activities at T2F — a space for cultural and social activities and open dialogue — had come to a halt. The coffeehouse, bookshop and exhibition gallery also discontinued operations, and the place was seen locked with shutters down.

However, Mahenaz announced that: "T2F café will be open for regular service from Sunday, May 3, 2015."

Meanwhile, events will not be held at the premises in May as the team is travelling to London for the Alchemy Festival, where the organisation is curating and producing a multi-media exhibit, titled 'Dil Phaink'.

The press statement further appealed to the public and press to end all speculations regarding the incident and the future of PeaceNiche. It said that it won't be accountable for funds, events and trusts made in the name of Sabeen, except for those which the organisation had officially declared.

Moreover, the statement urged against sharing Sabeen's family photographs on social media as well as unverified and false content.

It further said that PeaceNiche does not endorse content produced, including written and oral or visual, and information regarding Sabeen shared on Facebook and Twitter and at vigils, tributes and public gatherings. It ends on the words: "Rest gracefully, rest gently and rest in power, Sabeen."

Fashion journalist Mohsin Sayeed, who was also Sabeen's friend, said that people were too shattered to run the place again, which is why it was shut.

"It is not difficult to open up the place but who will run it like Sabeen did?" he asked. He said that with Sabeen's personality being balanced and unbiased, now the challenge is how to run the place the 'Sabeen way'.

He further ruled out speculations that people are scared to operate T2F and said that had the people been scared, they would not have come out on the streets to protest her death.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2015.

COMMENTS (2)

Salman - SK | 8 years ago | Reply @Khalid M Bhatti: Your comment is a confused hodgepodge amalgam of mishmash but nonetheless represents the thinking of a considerable segment of our people and therein lies the dilemma of Pakistan. For a significant number of people like me, Pakistan's concept represented a safe haven for the Muslims of the sub-continent, where they could practice their faith without the shackles of caste, untouchability, regionalism and cultural hegemony, living side by side with our Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Christian, and Buddhist neighbors, where they could be equally free, as enshrined in the proclamation of Jinnah on August 11, 1947. For Jinnah and my parents' generation Islam contained democratic precepts of life, liberty, and freedom for everyone. It is laid out in black and white if you read that speech (without Zia's plagiarized version.) Unfortunately, that dream has become a nightmare and Pakistan has become an exact opposite of that perceived state. People like Sabeen are paying with their life in the struggle for the restoration of that dream. Which is why this news of T2F reopening is like the fresh breath of morning dew for those who yearn to breath free. Hope my comment made some sense to you.

Khalid M Bhatti | 8 years ago | Reply The murder of any human is condemnable. No one has right to take law and order in one's hand. But no one has right either to impose foreign culture, traditions and religion on other ,in the name of modernity,secularism. First of all its the duty of concern government to take care of its, people, culture, traditions,rituals and religion and when governments failed to serve its obligations to majority of people who feel that their religion and culture is under invasions, unfortunately compelled to take affairs in their own hands, this is the problem with Pakistan. Pakistan despite embellishing itself as " Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has no such characteristics, in fact Pakistan is a secular. Unfortunately Pakistan Government favor any thing but Islam and in west they favor too every thing but Islam. The irony is this that there is no different between west and Pakistan. West made law for its citizen according to their secular population and Pakistan made too laws of secular characteristics for its Muslim citizen, problem lies here, government of Pakistan need to make up its mind what it want and how it want to run Pakistan.

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