Pakistani actress Veena Malik’s alleged nude photo shoot for an Indian magazine has hit the headlines in American tabloids and even taken note of by major national newspapers. ‘Pakistani actress Veena Malik sues FHM magazine over nude cover photo’, (Mass-circulation New York Daily News), ‘Veena Malik, Pakistani Model, Poses Nude, Causes Fury’ (Huffington Post) and ‘Pakistani actress Veena Malik’s nude ‘ISI’ photo stirs controversy’ (Washington Post) are some of the headlines in Monday papers. ‘Pakistani actress Veena Malik appears on the cover of FHM India’s December issue wearing nothing but a steamy gaze and the initials of Pakistan’s fearsome intelligence agency, ISI, tattooed across her arm’, wrote The Daily News. . ‘Conservative Muslim clerics in her home country slammed the shot as an insult to Islam, while Pakistan’s government has promised to investigate whether the image was doctored’, it said.
The Washington Post noted that the controversy comes on the heels of a tense week for Pakistan, in which NATO airstrikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, an incident Senator John McCain blamed on ISI, which he said was actively supporting terrorist organisations. Senior officials in recent months have repeatedly accused ISI of supporting militants based in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas. Pakistan has denied such allegations. Kabeer Sharma, the editor of FHM magazine, which carried the photos, was quoted as saying that having ISI written on Veena Malik’s arm was just intended as a joke. But Pakistan’s media aren’t finding it funny, it was reported.