By Umar Aziz
The vast multitude of unsatisfied men, hordes of teenage boys and the occasional girl will have to go somewhere else for their pornographic needs, if the Qaumi Tajar Ittehad at Hall Road is to be believed.
The Hall Road, Link McLeod Road, Traders Association’s convention, presided by Babar Ali Khan, decided on Friday that the sale of porn should be penalised by the trade body itself. It was decided that any outlet caught selling the stuff would be closed down for four days and would be fined Rs. 10,000.
Some shops were still dealing in porn till Saturday night but by Monday, all shops were strictly abiding by the new decision.

The Hall Road CD and DVD market is essentially retail cluster. It is also has wholesale establishments. Certain outlets within the cluster, approximately two per floor in every plaza, had specialised in porn.
These outlets had specialised to the extent that they sold nothing but porn. Some of these shops had been around right since the CD format hit the mainstream years ago.
So why has the association become so perturbed by it all of a sudden? Because a line had been crossed. Roadside stalls started selling the stuff right out in the open.
Whereas the older porn outlets were almost invariably located in some seedy back corner of the Hall Road plazas, these stalls were peddling their wares out on the road, titles open for viewing by ladies, children or anyone who didn’t want anything to do with the stuff.
Such blatant display of porn didn’t go down too well with the more conservative members of the trade association.
By Monday, not only had all the roadside stalls been picked up but the earlier specialised shops were also forced to restock with less objectionable material.
“Well, its not too bad,” an optimistic young shopper said, ” Regular movies are becoming increasingly risquT. They might not come close to what we used to get from here but we can still get our kicks from them.”
The decision is still fresh and there is an air of caution within the market.
An inquiry about a porn movie at one of the newly “cleaned” up shop elicited a newer, more mainstream response. “No, but may I interest you in Mission: Impossible 3?”

Source: The Nation (http://nation.com.pk/daily/july-2006/18/index4.php)