An event was to be held on the 30th of March 2010 at Hall 6 of Expo Center Karachi, to break India’s world record of most people shaving at the same time. The event was being sponsored by Gillette, a reputed shaving company, the event was advertised well & over 2000 people showed up at the venue on their own free will, voluntarily, to be part of the smooth shavng spree.

The Organizing committee started receiving threats a couple of days leading to the event by Maulana Fazl ur Rehman & his cronies who called upon them to shutdown or face the consequences. The Maulana is said to have threatened to send a truck load of Madaressah boys to take care of the world record attempt. The organizers contacted Rangers for security and support who declined to help because they could only be deployed at the request of governmental approval, in turn the organizers resorted to coordinating their security cordon with the local police station who promised support.

The Bomb disposal squad checked and cleared the premises before noon. Entrance to the Expo center for the participants volunteers was on high protocol clearance and each person was carefully frisked and walked through metal detectors. After which each volunteer was registered at the reception desk and provided with a shaving kit.

The police on the other hand cautioned each person to go at his own risk as there was a threat of bomb. Despite all the negativity there were over 2000 men and boys gathered up until the 2pm start time. Most of the protesters were gathering outside the premises at the main metal immediately after the afternoon prayers & started chanting slogans & religious rhetorical to dissuade people from going in .

Seeing their efforts to going in vain as most people walked past them into the expo center, they then sent around 200 of their own guys to mingle with the ‘normal’ crowd. The lunch was serve to all the participants, After devouring the free lunch, the two hundred or so antagonists started moving towards washrooms, looking at the sudden mass movement going in one direction the volunteers tried to redirect the crowd and requested them to be seated.

Suddenly slogan chanting started with sounds of ‘Allah ho Akbar’ resonating through the halls combined with a shower of 500ml water bottles being thrown at the people present, these bottles which were provided for lunch and were now being used as weapons packed quite a lethal punch hitting participants on their faces & seriously injuring quite a few – total panic.

After creating total chaos these gangs of pseudo mullahs started moving out but a few brave volunteers choose to stop them and in turn asked for police assistance. The police in turn reportedly asked a bribe of 5 million rupees which clearly turned out to be a deal breaker and not provided.

The arsonists turned even more violent after seeing their exit being blocked and started breaking the window panes and wielded those pieces of broken glass as weapons, in response the brave volunteers backed off letting the enraged crowd out of the premises

Still to this point, after the hoodlums tried to terrorize & in their attempt to crash the event the participants (2000 plus youth ) were still wanting to go ahead with their attempt at the world record, returned but to their dismay the Hall Lights were turned off by the Expo Center authorities which was indeed the final straw & everybody started moving out. Seeing this the volunteers in their last ditch attempt went ahead of the crowd trying to plead them back in. But by then the Expo Center authorities had literally packed up and refused to allow the event to proceed as they had received enough threats to now not permit the event at all

The Islamic Soldiers then came in with there own cameras, surveyed & recorded their victorious mess and called it a day. The police were later found to be scavenging the lunch boxes when sponsors & organizers came to take their unused stuff.

It was a sad representation on the preachings of Islam, peace and tolerance were superseded by hooliganism, anger and violence

The thing to be noted here that Major news channels (AAJ, Express & Dawn news) mobiles were standing outside for coverage & no one dared show this incident apart from a short 10-second clip by Dawn TV. While The News crew were seen sitting inside having refreshments catered to by the event organizers.