Pakistan gets its first-ever Miss Universe contestant, earns the govt ire

PAKISTAN'S interim government and intellectual scholars and fundamentalists have encountered a severe pressing issue, which surpasses the Asian nation's rising debt crisis, economic crisis, and electricity shortage among other issues- How can a woman of Pakistan represent the nation at an international stage?

Interim Prime Minister Anwaar-Ul-Haq Kakar, foreign ministry and their intelligence bureau have been wracking their heads into understanding how such a ‘disaster’ unfolded. 

The ‘disaster’ was Pakistan for the first time on Thursday got its Miss Universe contestant. In a pageant event held in Maldives, 24-year-old Erica Robin won the title of Miss Universe Pakistan and is set to represent her nation for the Miss Universe competition in El Salvador scheduled to be held later this year. 

According to a report in Dawn, the first-ever Miss Universe Pakistan event featured five contestants from Pakistan and was organized by Dubai-based company Yugen Group, which announced in March that it had acquired the rights to the competition.

Now, PM Anwaar-Ul-Haq Kakar has Pakistan's foreign ministry trying to understand how the event, which many have called “shameful act" and an “insult and exploitation of women of Pakistan", was being held in the name of Pakistan. 

According to the Dawn report, religious scholar Taqi Usmani was among the first to take offence, insisting that the government take notice and proceed against those responsible for the pageant. He also demanded that the impression that these women were “representing Pakistan" should be dispelled.

The report further said journalist Ansar Abbasi also raised a similar gripe, asking which government functionary had approved sending Pakistani women to participate in the beauty pageant.

Responding to his criticism, Information Minister Murtaza Solangi tweeted that the government had not officially nominated anyone for such activities.

The issue was also raised by religious scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani on X, who demanded the government to “take notice" of the situation and “take action against those responsible as well as desist itself from the matter."

While the Karachi-based Erica Robin invited the world to visit Pakistan to “try the most sumptuous Pakistani cuisines and explore our enchanting nature, our snow-capped mountains, our greeneries and our progressive landscapes", the theocratic government of Pakistan has withdrawn clearance and acknowledgement of their first ever Miss Universe contestant. 

Pakistan's local news outlets have informed that Miss Universe Pakistan has only suffered severe indignation on social media and from governmental ranks casting aspersion on Erica Robin ‘representing’ Pakistan in the Miss Universe competition.