Two men were seen busy putting up a white-coloured banner with announcements in blue, green and red to mark an end to the “business of movies” on Tuesday and the start of “Islamic” business in Fawad Plaza on main University Road. “New businesses, God willing, will soon be inaugurated,” the banner read at a former digital versatile disc (DVD) shop that had closed a few months ago, as threatening messages were taking heavy psychological toll on local residents. Several businesses of audio and video compact discs have been shut down following a campaign by the sleeping cells of Al Qaeda-linked militants.Owner of the shop confirmed the shutting down of his business. “I do not want the neighbouring shopkeepers to get hurt because of my business.” He was the second businessman to have decided to close the business in the same market. V-den, another decades-old shop with a huge collection of movies, was the first to pull curtains on the CD business. There have been several bomb attacks on CD shops across NWFP and the main market of CD business in Nishtar Abad in Peshawar has recently experienced the explosion that killed one person.
V-den, centre of English, Indian, Pakistani old and new movies, was launched some 22 years ago when movie-lovers were less in number, but the V-den changed local residents’ taste by attracting them to classical movies. “We have shut down the business after threats,” Rafique Khattak of V-den told Daily Times. The collection of movies is all set to vanish that took more than two decades to make, he added.