In a very shocking development a young 32 year old person, father of four kids looses his life during the filming of a reality show sponsored by Unilever and being produced by their advertising agency Mindshare. Saad Khan was a game show contestant and the host/model Amina Sheikh, who also is the model of Clear Shampoo, gave an underwater challenge to Saad and during the execution of the stunt he apparently lost control, struggled and pleading for help could not recover, the inadequate safety personal and the equipment could not react in time and eventually he drowned
Saad Khan, 32 year old young man from Karachi and a father of four kids is sadly the victim, his body was returned to Karachi for burial two days back and the infuriated family has been running from pillar to post but it seems for some awkward reason it fails to catch the media attention and apparently no media house is ready to ‘run the story‘. It is a known fact that the media in Pakistan is usually head over heals on every other lame ass political slander, but surprisingly in Saad’s case this case of gross neglect is not worthy of even a short news item. Might this have anything to do with the influence of Unilever and Mindshare who are giant spenders armed with enormous advertisement budgets.
Initially Saad’s family was furious hoping to have Unilever cough up full responsibility, but at the moment they feel that the most important thing to look forward to is the future of Saad’s four kids who have no future.
Aarpix: These details are given by a 2nd cousin of Saad on the condition of anonymity. Saad was 31, 6′2″, handsome man was employed at RBS (formerly ABN AMRO). Saad live a very ambitious and thrilled life. In his professional life, he had accomplished more than his age. He had well established career and didn’t participate for the prize money or anything. He was rather very thrilling and adventurous. He was disqualified from the show after a few days but was then called by the death on a wild card entry.
He did not lose his balance in the water – he was an excellent swimmer but the doctors in Thailand after carrying out an autopsy told that his muscle had pulled and he had some weight tied up to his feet as part of the challenge and so could not make it back up. He was under water for about 6 minutes.
Saad has left a widow and 4 kids: Oldest one is 7 years old, then twins of age 5.5 and then the youngest who is only 1.5 years of age.
While this story is slowly making its way around, it seems that some serious counter efforts were made against Farhan Janjua of Aarpix, who first broke the story, WebHostingPad suddenly issued Aarpix a short notice disabling his website for “nature of content” [do have a look at Aarpix and see if you find any objectionable material] they then told Farhan to quickly move his data with immediate effect or else they will delete his content [4 years of hard work] – panicking the poor chap found a local friend willing to help him, but as soon as the DNS prorogation started ‘someone’ called Farhan’s friend and asked questions about Aarpix and if they can possibly ‘have the owners cell phone number’ worrying for the safety of his friends Farhan resolved to buy a sever internationally and used their support services to help salvage the at-risk data. As I write this post at 2am Aarpix is slowly coming back online.
I strongly believe these scare tactics must be condemned, Unilever/Mindshare should be held accountable for this accident and must be forced to offer compensation to the grieved family with immediate effect. I do not mean merely doling out a paltry 1 lac rupees to the affected family but stress a far more expensive compensation to widow and the four kids who now have a life to live without the primary bread earner and literally no husband or father to look after them. May Allah give them the courage and patience to recover from this tragic incident
UPDATE: Just noticed that Dawn.com is also playing some mischief in this incident as well, the above Obituatry message was published in Sunday’s edition of Dawn, 23rd August, 2009. If you scroll to page 14 Karachi Metropolian section within the online archive hosted at epaper.dawn.com you do see this image in small print, but clicking on Saad Khan’s Obituary, and it comes with an error “The Article image is missing”, might this be an accidental mistake, possible but aint it too coincidental?
UPDATE 2: The missing image from the epaper edition of Dawn.com has been fixed, one of their adminstrators personally called me up to inform me that it was a site-wide problem for that particular day, and the website administrators are fixing it with immediate effect, he has reassured me that there was no foul play. It was an Obituary ad and does not come under the editorial control of Dawn, even if they wanted to
Comments
363 responses to “Saad Khan looses life in Unilever / Mindshare Reality Show accident”
Can't a company as huge as Unilever arrange simple safety equipment & staff necessary at such events? Oh no wait, that would make the show look unreal so lets just play with the life of people because it is as cheap as 1 lac Rs.
This is a total nonsense. THE GUY WAS UNDERWATER FOR 6 MINUTES AND NO ONE COULD HELP HIM BECAUSE THEY ALL WERE BUSY MAKING THE SHOW REAL????
May Saad's soul rest in peace and may Allah give patience to his family. No one can bring him back but Unilever should be held responsible for his death. Rs.1 lac means nothing for 4 kids and a widow.
This is very sad. Indeed the first goal should be to make sure that Saad's widow and four kids are taken care of. The second is to work on lobbying for legislature to make sure that the value of life in Pakistan is set at some reasonable minimum. 1 Lac is ridiculous. Do you mean that you can buy eight Pakistani lives instead of a single car? What about the compounding effect of negligence or bad faith intentions?
This news is simply terrible. Have seen and witnessed so many reality adventure based shows but never came across such a news. It was really heart wrenching. Hearing the death of a person who has left behind a young widow and 4 small kids surly dries up ur veins. And according to Shoaibs point that the guy was beneath water for 6 minutes and still they couldnt arrange for a lifeguard?? How real is that!
May his soul rest in peace and Allah grants Sabar to the family of the deceased.
Dats reli smthing terrible!! i mean just giving a real touch to show, it cost a life of person!!!!
dats bad!
may his soul rest in peace and may Allah grant courage to da family, ameen
this is tragic, yet nothing shocking or new.
corporate giants have very, very long histories of stifling facts, including sponsored murder, but their budgets and contacts with media ensure we hardly ever hear of them. we need to be collectively much, much more informed and vocal before we can expect them to give a damn about accountability. AND we need to be collectively braver. we will offer help to the bereaved family, but how many will stand up to take a stand againt these mega-billionnaire corporations? how many will pay for honest lawyers to see the case through until justice is meted out? how many lawyers will be honest and brave enough to fight against the giants? how many Saads will it take for shareholders in these corporations to make their voices matter, or even withdraw their shares in protest? we need to take real action to save the Saads of the future, whether their lives are taken by accident or designed exploitation.
They probably paid more to the lawyer for getting the Non Responsibility clause..
this is seriously ill.
Words cannot express the grief here! A person has lost his life because no safety equipments were there and it was the responsibility of Unilever to arrange everything related to safety before doing something stupid (or real in their language).
Such corporations all the time cry about corporate social responsibility, going green etc but this is their reality to kill people in the name of reality.
I will make sure my whole family, friends do not buy any Unilever product in future. I am so furious at this, I dont have words to explain…
Inna lillahi Wa Inna Iaihee Rajion.
For them it was all a show. They would pay a lac or 10 lac and their duty will be over
I pray that Allah take care of his widow and his orphan kids, Ameeen.
I have to agree with anon. If this was a political issue… the media would have gone bananas so much so as to ensure we got sick of that particular news item because all the channels kept running running sad and depressing and horrifying images over and over again.
But because this case involves Mindshare and Unilever … HUGE SPENDERS …and well lets not forget Mindshare's other clients… Telenor… Shell… Caltex…. etc etc. No no … they simply can't go against the hand that feeds them now can they.
This is the real face of corporations. Everything is Business. If left to them … they would merely say in the words of 'The Turk' Solozzo (from the Godfather) 'Hey its just business, nothing personal.'
Make out the cheque for an amount which seems huge to the individual and is peanuts for us… and we are done. Out of court deals ROCK! Well screw them …and screw the lawyers who agree to this. Screw the journalists who have not tried to be dedicated to their profession (rather the essence of their profession) and broken the story and been aggressively on the heels of revealing this to the world.
That is one thing I hate about the media. Media did not bother to cover nirala issue as much as they could help the vistims and here they have got their masters in question and they can never say anything against them. That is the hard fu*king reality. I am so very much pissed off right now to say anything. May Allah help the victims in getting the justice not only in this world but here after.
Guys, let us know if we could help in any possible way as they say picture speaks more than a thousand words. So I would really love to kick unilever/mindshare arse on this issue through our comics/animation to spread the news.
First of I feel very sorry for the gentleman who lost his life with such poor arrangement done by such a HUGE multinational organization………
Now we need a brief explanation by these companies who bear this loss, their family is in the middle of the road…….
Better pay a HUGE amount to the family of the deceased and should apologize to the family and should arrange to give a job to the wife if she agrees to it.
May his soul rest in peace and may Allah grant courage to thefamily. Aameen !
What a shame! What a disgrace! Media keep bragging about people getting killed and thse who kill them, talking of accountability and blah blah…..but when it comes to their own interest, they become silent too!!! much like the people and institutions that they criticize….
…and what a loss to the family…a grievance only they can comprehend…May Allah give them courage to bear this…
…Unilever and Mindshare should apologize publicly to safegaurd their image and not hide what happened out of their irresponsibility…
Minimum compensation that Unilver and Mindshare should pay is 2.5 Crore and 1 Crore respectively (0.75 crore each for the 4 kids and 0.5 crore for the widow)…besides taking up full responsibility of complete and quality education of all four kids + monthly expenses + gifts and trips at festivals and vacations…
If unilever does this, ppl will have restored faith in the company and its products….
This is truly shocking. I cant begin to imagine the grief the family would be facing at the moment. There must be proper compensation and other large active agencies, Ngos or organization and Media should join hands rather then hush this up.. !! Imagine if this were to happen to one of us..!!
May Saad's soul rest in peace and may his family have the strength to deal with their greatest loss. !! Ameen
This is the saddest news. I cannot imagine what the family will be going through. May Allah give them patience to go through such a tough time. But the role of media on this incident is pathetic and it should be condemned by us. And these kind of shows should be banned.
My condolences for the family.
This is sick, one of the saddest news :(, the poor guy and his family. May Allah raise his positions in Jannat-ul-Firdous and give his family the power to go through this accident.
And shame on this media, who starts showing unconfirmed news and kept the silence on such a big tragedy. Mindshare is a advertising giant in Pakistan and that must be keeping those cheap channels from bringing the news to public. That shows that apart from the Government, how many privately held organizations in Pakistan are corrupt.
The international media has taken up the gauntlet. Adage themselves have reported on the incident. Unilever Thailand is being held accountable and they're showing how they're good corporate citizens and it's not even their show.
Here in Pakistan however we have Mindshare and Unilever stifling the news as much as possible. It's horrible how corporates work in our nation.
It is important to find out the name of the production company who was handling this project in Thailand and take it up on a governmental level, which any other country would do for its citizens. It isn't about just compensation it amounts to criminal neglect.
U know wht all put all da matters in other side..
Jus think abt the widow and 4 childern..
Jus feel wht his wife felt when she heard His death's news…
We have soo many people who can talk and jus talks… but no one who can do…
Trust Me, if i have some P.R to upper level i will try ma level best to compensate atleast from ma side..
Although to compensate is not possible for anyone's life, but atleast i can answer ma inner soul that in some way i raise voice against it!
OHH Allah please stay US away from this situation!
At least a newspaper like Dawn should not at any cost be part of this evil hush hush scheme…Surely this unfortunate event is a dark side of corporate sector…It is the moral & ethical responsibility of any corporation to accept if anything goes wrong…Kudos Aarpix & Dr.Awab…u both r brave.
Guys – this is extremely sad. But remember, like UniLever is a business, the media is also a business. They are not there to improve the country or fight against injustice – they are there for ads & revenues & viewership. No media channel or paper will cut off their lifeline of ads by covering such a story. That's just the way the world works – and it sux.
The only people who can break this story is the family of the deceased, nobody will do it for them. They need to go to court, bribe a few journalists/reporters, and get this out into the public.
Why didnt they lodge an FIR against Unilever or advertising agency? Why are they looking for compensation? The best compensation is due punishment by law to all culprits involved.
May God gave eternal peace to Saad's soul and give courage to the family. My heart sours with the ages of his kids and I am speechless as how they will manage them self in the life to come. Unilever or any XYZ company should be penalized of what they did. If an individual has to pay the price of his life for the share adventure and for the earning of profits for the company sue the company hard get the pople out on the streets and let them stand in front of the head office of unilever to make them realize of their blunder. I will take part in that cause if its launched and should be. As it could have happened to any one of us. We all like adventure in one way or the other. Media should be ashamed of there role as they do report stupendous material for the sheer increase in there viewer ship but serious news gets blown away.
They should get a good lawyer who should ensure that the children's educational and other financial needs should be supported by Unilever, till the children atleast complete college, and they should also be given a trust fund by uni-lever as support for when they start off their careers! The wife must also receive finanical support as long as she remains unmarried, and perhaps a little beyond that as well!She may have given up her chance at a career etc. to look after children and is also Unilever's responsibility now… Mindshare HAS to be penalised to set an example, and the authorities should ban television networks in Pakistan from airing such shows because we do not have resources to ensure safety of participants, and such accidents are likely to take place again, unless everyone takes serious notice!
This is a case of sheer negligence and a irresponsible attitude of Unilever. Im just very sad about saad kids, i mean what did they ever do to deserve all this? I personally feel that Unilever should compensate the widow and the kids, atleast financially support them as in pay for the education, help the wife etc. In our country, such things take place every now and then, but nobody seems to bother, But now its high time that action should be taken against such matters and also better safety measures r provided in such game shows.
This is another case of the giant winning over the weak underlings…wid just enough clout of a corporate giant, everything gets watered down and even hurriedly brushed aside. Human Lives are meaningless and small fry for the wonderful glitzy world of promos of toothpaste or shampoos or wateva thatz soooooo very important to sell!!!
Just hope the giant is brought down to its knees and payz for its ruthless advertising policies. /AS a pay back….Readers of this blog should blacklist all the giants products from their shopping list!
We are one of the agency for Unilever. We know Unilever standards of safety & Security during their work are very high. But according to my source that code was not religiosly followed by their agency (Mindshare & Mindshare's 3p Mr. Naveed Arshad) Mr. Naveed Arshad does not have any track record of recording such show & he is son in Law of Mr Server Mossave. He currently works for Oxygene music channel.
According to insights from the shoot site, that poor Saad was tied up with heavy metals for for under water challenge & at that point Unilever safety rules were crushed.
He screamed & tried to shout for help but recording team said he is acting & they KEPT SHOOTING THAT DEATH GAME!
but the most cruel role was played by Pakistani so called free media. Mindshare instructed Tv & print media that Unilever will pull their ads from those channels who dare to air this sad news. SAD SAD SAD…..this means that Musharraf can also buy these so called media…..
We are Paksitanis
Very sad to know about death. The so called "free media" is silent due to their commercial interests. Revenue coming from Unilever will be a hefty percentage of total revenue of the channels. Why would they annoy their sponsors.
Unilever need to take responsibility of kids/wife/other dependents of Saad.
Ashraf Chaudhry
Sales Trainer
Author of international best-seller The Craft of Selling "YOURSELF"
Extremely sorry to hear about this mishap. Reality shows are usually high risk oriented and this guy seems healthy, 6'2 and a great swimmer, just that his leg muscle got pulled and they thought he was fine. VERY VERY VERY SAD. Also, the team should be held responsible for not providing any help in those 6 minutes. They must be thinking he will make it. Lekin, jo Allah ki marzi hoti hai wohi hota hai.
Risk oriented and adventurous people always suffer but this was not entirely his fault. My condolences to his family. May we ALL learn from this incident. Never take extreme risks in life without 101% preparation or full back up and SUPPORT.
Every company tries its best to ensure security measures; Unilever has always been a prime example for this however this incident has completely turned it opposite for them. At this very point no body can match the grief of Saad and his family but the only thing that could sustain this is if Unilever accepts it as their responsibility regardless of the production or direction team. If Unilever wouldve ensured security like they do at their work place "religiously" this might have been avoided. Unilever should take charge of compensating largely the entire family ie the widow and the four kids through education and welfare funds.
Realistically speaking Media cant do much about this even if they promote the case; because a case about a dutch artist was posted and went void. People still use the dutch products, because things move on.
However this is now Pakistani Govertnments responsibility to hold the company accountable. My question is if this wouldve happened in US, what wouldve been Lever's condition then? Because the most important thing that matters abroad is quality of life which sadly is not a case in Pakistan.
RIP Saad.
when will the corporate giants stop treating humans as mere guinea pigs? who will bring justice in this world of Machiavelli's Prince.
R.I.P Saad khan
" I haven't seen this news on television which is sad, but we can use internet to let people know about this incident. We should start with facebook and let other people know. This ain't 80's or 90's where you can get away with things like that. I mean how can a company like unilever with billions can't provide proper safety. Unilever/Mindshare has to pay for it simple as that."
Relatives/Friends has to play their part.
Saad was a good friend and an extremely jolly and interesting person. His death is a great great loss…However it is wrong to react emotionally. The show was sponsored by Unilever and being produced by 2 of the top production companies with high safety standards. Saad was supposed to wade through waist deep water which was shown to all participants by production crew many times, then 3 participants went before saad. His accident and going under water in which he could walk is a freak accident and happened so fast no one could do anything. Now as in all these kind of shows which are very comon in pakistan and across the globe all participants are under legal contract where they admit to risk to injury and life. Hence legally unilver has no issue, morally they are under an obligation to do what is best for the family and they already are discussing with the family and some of saad’s friends as to what can/should be done. Now we should all realise that it is critical the family gets the best financial deal for the kids and the wife because 6 months down the road all of us would be blogging on something else while the family would be suffering because we all made so much bad press that Unilever decided to pursue this legally with their lawyers and not pay anything? I am not sure thats the best road for the family. Please think rationally and not emotionally and help the family if you can in any way rather than actually making it more difficult for them
I also agree that Unilever should support medical and education for the kids for the future rather than paying a lump sum.. I am hopeful that this may be agreed
Geo just covered it, the sad event happened in Thailand
Ext Comm manager of Unilever was on air and assured support for family
It is a shame that this tragic news has been hushed up by the local media and TV channels in an attempt to save their advertising revenue.
It is shocking to learn that there was no diver/life-guard available at the production set.
Having legal agreements in place is one thing but it's the responsibility of these companies to provide adequate safety arrangements to the participants which sadly was not provided in this particular instant.
I pray & hope that Unilever provides appropriate compensation to the widow and the four small kids keeping in mind that life itself is priceless!
Dear pk:
When and where has Geo aired it (date and time)
can you mark a link of it
Really shocked and sad.. May Allah bless his Soul.
And may Allah give his family strength to face the hard reality.
Amen.
Dear Pk:
When it was aired by geo. It was planted by Farishty Aslam ext comm manager of Unilever & mindshare arranged the whole thing.
I heard they were planning of One sided story, they are not telling the truth that Unilever & their agency has not followed the safety guidelines.
1 lakh rs or kids education cannot bring Saad back. Only justice should be done when these Multinationals should accept their cruelty and should not try to threat media for stopping thier ads. On the other hand there should a criminal investigation done in Thailand and in Pakistan also.
No one talking to Saad family & other participants who know the real story
i agree with adeel that we must respond un-emotionally but on the other hand getting the money for his family is not the ONLY solution to the issue. paying ANY amount would not be any problem for Unlilever but it cannot be a substitute to Saad's life. actual solution, other than the money off course, is to know the truth so that any such accident can be avoided in future.
after all there are 100s of reality shows going around the world but we don't know any such incident elsewhere.
for this i think Unilever and the family of the victim must appear on media and clarify whatever happened.
may ALLAH rest Saad's soul in peace
If what adeel is saying is true concerning the safety precautions being in place then where were they when he was under water for 6 mins? It takes a lifeguard a couple of seconds to spring into action.
If it is a fact that the water was only waist deep as you have stated then even the camera crew/director/ assistants/presenters/ passersby could have jumped in to save his life.
Please kiss ass if you want to but dont insult our intelligence.
There were no safety precautions in place by these companies with high safety standards if in 6 minutes there was no rescue.
You are a liar and a very stupid one at that beacause it could have been you or your loved one; what goes around does come around and for people who try to cover up and ass kiss the companies for personal gain Allah is watching and it will be worse when it comes around.
Please think before writing.
I wonder why a responsible father of four would partake in such a silly risky stunt?!
Obviously this is unfortunate, but the deceased person is responsible for putting himself in this mess in the first place.
Lesson to be learnt by those wanting their quick share of fame on tv… I mean would anyone here be willing to swim while being tied down by weights. Really stupid stunt.
I agree with kiran sara if the safety mechanism was that good then how could a guy stay in waist height water for six minutes and no one from the crew went to help the lad out??
No safety precautions was in place as commented by Adeel….it is SAD that people are still thinking that our lives are very cheap & they can take our lives merely saying that we used safety & we signed the legal contract (death contract)
No one is emotional here Adeel …..we are just telling the truth which is that no media house is running the story because of Unilever & Mindshare extreme pressure of revenue loss….this is true and people from Mindshare told me that.
Another sad side of the story is that Mindhare/Broadmind & Naveed Arshad signed the saftey checklist paper after their return from aborad which as per protocol should be signed before the shoot.
Please stop lying……STOP lying & show respect for a human life.
These so called free media DSNGs reach ASAP where ever an accident happened no matter a Bus accident or a Rickshaw but now what happened to them when a young father died & their cameras was shooting. According to a recent news GEO & many other channels signed the contracts for airing Clear MEN show & Clear brand team still wants to air the show…..which is very very SAD.
SAAD we are sorry!
UPDATE: The missing image from the epaper edition of Dawn.com has been fixed, one of their adminstrators personally called me up to inform me that it was a site-wide problem for that particular day, and the website administrators are fixing it with immediate effect, he has reassured me that there was no foul play. It was an Obituary ad and does not come under the editorial control of Dawn, even if they wanted to
The above post has been appended to reflect this update
These kind of responsibilities and brutal acts must not only be impugned but also severely punished for the better sake of People
Yet another reminder that we live in a third world country where law is defined by power (and not the other way around) and power by financial muscle.
@ EmmaBee : what if this stunt is not partake by "the father of four" instead it was done by some of your son or your unmarried brother, would be feeling the same as you are feeling right now. Reality shows are aired and shot in every country of the world but these shows need extra security arrangement and that is what missing. The contestant was drowning for 6 minutes without any security backup.
I am sorry not only for the victim and his family but also i feel sorry for people like you. how easily you held the victim responsible for taking his own life.
Inna lillahi Wa Inna Iaihee Rajion.
we can go on playin the blame game and cursing!
but the fact remains, it was destined that he die this way.
God knows best and yes this gives us no reason to not scorn stunts which take place uselessly putting someone's life in danger but Allah is Great!
He know Best!
Inna lillahi Wa Inna Iaihee Rajion.
It is sad but as people from industry say, this guys poori bottle chada ke jatay hain shooting pe…if one of them got underwater, wife got no choice except being widow but chicks around will get next baby!
By the way every day dozens got killed and get burned in a "CHOWRANGI" in Karachi by kerosene or Quids orders. One damn death and for what this much mess?
Don't tell me others who die doesn't got children!
The land of 'Mafia' or Karachi/….how many get killed and what are security measures government provides! I don't mean it should apply to corporate, but what is happening in society, transforms in to social and corporate culture!
You got a healthy society, the corporate is responsible. You got BHATTA MAFIA running your system, you better give a break to corporate who are under the law at least!
shocking story