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”
I guess they wanted to take the concept of 'reality' show to a whole new level.
Some good PR is happening by Unilever to avoid this incident.
The point still remains that Unilever and Party needs to go to the Court in order for future sponsors to learn a lesson and not to sponsor something which leads to life-taking games. If this issue is buried, we won't some have any future laws to avoid such incidents.
-When Unilever will go to Court all other sponsors will check things triple before jumping on board into further reality shows.
-Secondly, we can also expect some kind law to be passed or at least a ruling by the Court so these activities have a well check and balance from the law enforcement side.
Nida, there are 1000 things running on the mind of Saad's family. If you can't support, don't ruin the spectrum of hope.
Instead of wasting time in registering a case , we should need to step forward and do something for his family. No use of registering a case as we all will gonna bz in daily life sucking activities and the lady behind Saad will have to face the ridiculous comments from our "Azad Media" and "Azad Adalat" and above all what are you expecting from Media? they are only approaching to make alot of money out while making this sad incident online. Talk shows , documentries with thousands of Ads from unilever itself. All rubbish and ridiculous.Its like two different sides of a same coin.
Come On Media ,STOP THIS DRAMA, AHUMAN LIFE IS NOT A CHARACTER for you guys to earn the money.You guys have earned alot, please participate in some social service as well as this is your basic responsibilty and area to work if you said youself "Azad" .
Again a humble request to every one , please spread the message to every possible area so that everyone has a clear picture of where and in which circumstances we are living.
Step Foward and do something for Saad's Children and family ,a little contribution from your side might take a dawn in thier lives. MAY GOD REST HIS SOUL IN PEACE
Mr Bilal,
We live in a country where even the traffic laws differ from city to city, and you expect the courts to pass a ruling on how reality shows – shot abroad, no less – should be run. Really?
There's hope, and then there's pie in the sky.
@Nida, By signing a waiver do you think they can evade their liability for the death. Well i am not pointing that Unilever or Mindshare is responsible for his death..coz i don't know with Whom the late Saad Khan actually entered in to contract. but one thing for sure i know is that merely writing a waiver do not render a party free of any death liability. these are the clauses which are by law of no legal effect. secondly, even if saad agreed to this particular term then too this clause is of no effect whatsoever.
if its a big company and its proved in the court that they are totally involved in this crime, then definitely they should be brought to justice. and for your knowledge nida this is a case of Gross negligent Manslaughter, and tortious liability on the other hand. I hope you are very much clear on legal aspect of waiver now.
lastly, please don't come up with this excuse that they should not be brought to justice just because saad himself agreed to the waiver, C'mon guys be sensible first. No law of any country allows such waiver and held them legally valid clauses. I can give you hundreds of cases here where they were held guilty merely on the fact that they failed to take necessary precautions.and hell yess the deceased signed the contract too with a waiver clause in it..
Kind regards,
Hassan Shah
Totally agreed Nida! if we are expecting that our courts will punish Unilever , seems to be joke in this present scenario.
Take your emotions out of your mouth and do something sensible that will not effect the future of his family.
Taking them in court is like gifting his whole family in pain and trouble foreva.
@ Ms Nida….
well u ryt at ur part….the direcotors, producers every 1 is responsible for this !!!
i agree with Mr Bilal
omair — the story has come in the news and jang — and was aired on geo yesterday as well
Mr Hassan Shah , regarding which law are you taking about? r you talking about the laws which are all money dependent ? All the charges can be easily exempted by showing a little amount of money and power and this is the only law we all are following. So i am again reqesting to come out from the imaginary world of fantasy and think practically which suits both his family and children.
Perhaps what may work is a phone call to Unilever's investor relations in Rotterdam or London (details below) – there is still some humanity left in Europe.
Weena 455, PO Box 760
3000 DK Rotterdam
The Netherlands
T +31 (0)10 217 4000
F +31 (0)10 217 4798
Commercial Register Rotterdam
Number: 24051830
Unilever PLC
Unilever House
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DY
United Kingdom
T +44 (0)20 7822 5252
F +44 (0)20 7822 5951
Unilever PLC registered office
Unilever PLC
Port Sunlight
Wirral
Merseyside CH62 4ZD
United Kingdom
Registered in England and Wales
Company Number: 41424
further to this, a reputed company like unilever must have some guidelines when sponsoring reality shows such as the one in which our dear friend lost his life. I am sure that those guidelines must have been breached somewhere resulting in Unilever looking in to compensating the family; same goes with mindshare, which i think is not bearing as big a reputational brunt or being pointed at as much as Unilever.
A reputed company like unilever must have some guidelines when sponsoring reality shows such as the one in which our dear friend lost his life. I am sure that those guidelines must have been breached somewhere resulting in Unilever looking in to compensating the family; same goes with mindshare, which i think is not bearing as big a reputational brunt or being pointed at as much as Unilever.
A reputed company like unilever must have had some guidelines when sponsoring reality shows such as the one in which our dear friend lost his life. I am sure that those guidelines must have been breached somewhere resulting in Unilever looking in to compensating the family; same goes with mindshare, which i think is not bearing as big a reputational brunt or being pointed at as much as Unilever.
inaliha waina eleh rajeyon…it is a very sad news…i knew saad from last many years..when i was in pakistan i had chance to meet him on diffrent occassions..he was such nice jentlman…when i heard this news i could not belive beause i always seen him smiling and got a very positive wibes from him…he was very adventerist person i am sure he wanted to prove his ablities during the show…but may be his life span was over…may his soul in rest in peace…i will always remmebr him as a perfect human being..we,ll miss u S A A D.:(
@Nida: I would have asked your comments if someone close to you (like your brother or husband) would have been in Saad's place.
Even if the waiver was signed it still doesn't mean that you leave the participants to die. Why wasn't there adequate safety arrangements? Why wasn't a life guard kept there to watch water stunts. How do you respond to these questions?
@Steve Gulberg: I hope you can email/fax/call the people in London and Rotterdam and apprise them of the situation.
This is shocking and just goes on to prove how lame our legal system is! The management at Unilever imagines it can easily get away with this death by disposing paltry amount of one lac rupees where as had this been across the border (India) or just about any other European they dare not have gotten away with it. Can't we report this to BBC or CNN networks? I am sure they would pick on the story? How can one love this country when you mean nothing to it! This is absolutely abhorrent, how irresponsible MNCs are and how helpless our whole country fellows are!
A tragic incident. May his soul rest in peace.
1. He was no Edhi or social worker. He got paid for the job.
2. He knew the risks involved in the job.
3. He did not protested or even he got a right to refuse to take the job, if, there are inadequate safety arrangements.
4. He took the job means that he was satisfied with safety arranagements and risks.
5. Accidents do happen. But non of this 'mob' (as some one mentioned) has come up with solid proof of a safety laps safety requirements for such exercise. No one even mentioned what is needed and where company failed!
6. The family members should sue the company rather then sending emails to blogs to black mail company and make some quick bucks from this tragedy.
7. If such mob mentality and public lynching continues, soon we might find multinationals refusing to hire talented Pakistani's and get other nationals!
8. Wait for investigations and let the responsibility to be fixed. End of the day Uniliver got nothing to do with incident?
9. If Unilever sponsored it doesnt mean it is responsible for operations and arrangements.
10. Sad but a fact…even on tragic incidents like this some family members wants to make some money and Unilever is a cow milk able. But it might kill the future of many Pakistanis. If there is real negligence, then go to court, not a media campaign!
@Aisha Ghumman: you mean to get this story to Rupert Murdock's realm and wish that it will we given due justice…I don't think so…they're all on the same team…its better we realize this truth soon or similar or worse things would be happening to us also and no one would be there hear us out.
Nida
I agree with the fact that accidents happen and even the best laid plans can go bad. What really ticks me off is that UNIlever and Mindshare tried to cover it up and used their financial strength to stop this news from airing and furthermore the so called independent media and ppl like Mr. Kamran Khan and Mr. Ansar abbasi who can talk about anything and everything were silent about it. The fact that this news was hushed clearly tells us that someone tried to keep the media silent.
Please note that when GEO can go to the house of the ppl who died at the KFC fire just for ratings and when it can keep on repeating and showing the boy who was involved in a car accident why was it so that it kept silent on this tragedy surely they were looking after their own interest.
AND NOT ONLY GEO BUT THE ENTIRE PRINT AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA WHICH IS ALWAYS IN RACE TO BREAK THE NEWS JUST KEPT SILENT. SURELY MINDSHARE IS A POWERFULL COMPANY
Comment by Nida on August 29, 2009 @ 4:01 pm
Nida BRAVO…for talking sense in a society where talking sense is a crime. You follow someone and decide on their teachings, then get it implemented through force and blackmail.
A tragic incident. May his soul rest in peace.
1. He was no Edhi or social worker. He got paid for the job.
2. He knew the risks involved in the job.
3. He did not protested or even he got a right to refuse to take the job, if, there are inadequate safety arrangements.
4. He took the job means that he was satisfied with safety arranagements and risks.
5. Accidents do happen. But non of this ‘mob’ (as some one mentioned) has come up with solid proof of a safety laps safety requirements for such exercise. No one even mentioned what is needed and where company failed!
6. The family members should sue the company rather then sending emails to blogs to black mail company and make some quick bucks from this tragedy.
7. If such mob mentality and public lynching continues, soon we might find multinationals refusing to hire talented Pakistani’s and get other nationals!
8. Wait for investigations and let the responsibility to be fixed. End of the day Uniliver got nothing to do with incident?
9. If Unilever sponsored it doesnt mean it is responsible for operations and arrangements.
10. Sad but a fact…even on tragic incidents like this some family members wants to make some money and Unilever is a cow milk able. But it might kill the future of many Pakistanis. If there is real negligence, then go to court, not a media campaign!
What an irony:
Unilever posts Rs 1.227 PAT
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200…
I am forwarding someone's views
"Get in touch with uniliver worldwide head office and make a formal complaint to the top man (it might not achieve anything but then again you never know). the letter should be very strong and well written and addressed to the right person – you could send copies of the letter to the pakistan head office as well as local press etc. enlist the help … Read Moreof teeth.com.pk to publicise this tragedy. also, the family could do some fundraising etc – it works here in england – i am not sure how well it would work in pakistan…but it is a thought"
I live in london .. It will be good if we all together as a one voice can approach them here. What you guys think. Will it make any difference ???? Will this help his family ??
@ A little sanity : what exactly are u trying to prove here ? Road accidents are the leading cause of death With nearly 1.2 million fatalities and over 20 million injured in road accidents each year. Now if i am injured in an accident and i hear u babbling that i knew the risks involved in getting on the road, i will break ur mouth to pieces.
Ppl take jobs not becuz they are satisfied, but becuz they need a source of income to carry on their lives. And as miserable as life has become in Pakistan , i can only imagine to what lengths ppl can go to meet their families expenses.
What is disgusting abt ur comment or i'd rather say, mentality , is ur indifference to the tragic loss of a life. Its a human life u r talking, for God's sake . If that the brand of sanity u r selling, then to hell with it .
I would like to comment on "A little sanity! views"
he said "even on tragic incidents like this some family members wants to make some money and Unilever is a cow .."
I think you must go and have a look at his family .. just once .. the pain they are going through is unbearable. You have no clue about it.
All this blog is about is to force these two freaky giants to atleast take some responsibilty and take care of his young innocent children not to make any money.
How on earth can you even think like that ..
Dear All,
You can get in touch with:
Steve.Williams@unilever.com
Stephen Williams
General Counsel & Chief Legal Officer
@ A little sanity: they say when insanity has the majority the sane people are the ones who get labeled insane.
Steve as we speak our social impact team is composing an email. The email has severe allegations against Unilever, Mindshare, PH and all third parties. Along with strong words we have recommended the following (this is a short list):
-Unilever Brand Director down should get fired immediately.
-Chairman Unilever Pakistan Limited should publicly apologize both on TV and in Newspapers.
-A Heavy fine should be imposed on the production house not less than 20 Million USD.
-The TV Director of the Show should be banned for life for any TV or Commercial activity.
-UPL should be completely banned from conducting any reality shows, this also included road shows and mobile events (SURF EXCEL ETC). Because Now Unilever's credibility is at question, they might also kill couple of mothers and their children.
And some more.
The ones who are taking the side of this crime, are involved in this crime.
This is a sad news…May his soul rest in peace…and May Allah give strength to his family (Ameen)
Please pakistanis wake up! everyone has to die and no one knows how n when….Please everyone pray for Mr Saad n his family…Recite Surah-Fatiha for him.
I agree with few of the commentors here…Saad's family should go to the court n
This is a sad news…May his soul rest in peace…and May Allah give strength to his family (Ameen)
Please pakistanis wake up! everyone has to die and no one knows how n when….Please everyone pray for Mr Saad n his family…Recite Surah-Fatiha for him.
This is truely TRAGIC and absalutely UNACCEPTABLE!!! no one has any business conducting such shows without the necessary precautions being in place….no business at all….there is no way in hell they can get away with this…. those responsible MUST own up and be ACCOUNTABLE no matter what the consequences!!
Responsible parties should simply come out with plan to compensate the family. Or there should be campaign to boycott their products.
Here's a small response to those who think 'Sanely' here.
1. No clause in the world allows the death of the participant. Negligence cannot be 'waived'. What we are after is the 'FACT' of matter, if negligence did occur. If it is proven that it is, than all parties to the contract will be punishable.
2. Anyone who suppresses a news report, is punishable under the law of the country.
3. The reason why the family had to resort to reporting on blogs and new media is because the traditional media was not willing to report on the issue.
4. Compensation must be provided to the family under a moral code if not a legal code.
http://paksatire.com/2009/08/29/unilever-mindshar…
I had an experience with Unilever during my last job in Karachi and realized how powerful they are. I was working with an IT services company. Unilever breached source code copyright agreement with us and bluntly admitted while requesting for services to correct the issues their team had created. When confronted, their Company Secretary shamelessly said that "we are compensating this by offering you more business (for which in any case they had no other choice)". When the company CEO pressed for compensation charges for breach of agreement, they came back with threats of maligning our company's reputation in market, in writing! No lawyer was willing to take our case.
inaliha waina eleh rajeyon…it is a very sad news…i knew saad from last many years..when i was in pakistan i had chance to meet him on diffrent occassions..he was such nice jentlman…when i heard this news i could not belive beause i always seen him smiling and got a very positive wibes from him…he was very adventerist person i am sure he wanted to prove his ablities during the show…but may be his life span was over…may his soul in rest in peace…i will always remmebr him as a perfect human being..we,ll miss u S A A D.:(
Someone please prove that the company involved in managing the stunt *managing the stunt, not sponsoring it* was liable and then we'll talk about retribution. Right now, all I've heard is, Unilever must pay. For what, exactly?
So far the autopsy hasn't been done and Thai authorities have not released an official reports. Maybe you all need to base your arguments on real facts rather than just rumors.
@nida: how can you keep the sponsor aside? Do they give money and don't see how their money is being spent? ultimately it is every one's fault who is involved in any way. and All we are asking is to be socially responsible and help poor family coping with the loss.
If some one can write me a decent "fax" with all the references to this blog etc, I promise I'd fax them twice every day to their all head offices, ceo , IR , media department until they pay 10-12 million rs to family. My email address is mnoman15-bbatyahoodotcom
Dania may be you can help me ….
Mr. Umair has summed up the whole debate nicely into few points..
I am sorry but you haven't said a word about the ethics of such reality shows. You simply focused on a compensation to the family of the deceased but its more than this that is at stake.
As far as I know, the deceased would have signed an undertaking which rather dis-qualifies him of any compensation. The same act also might have disqualified him of any insurance benefits as normally insurances don't cover such risky sports. May Allah rest his soul in peace.
For you, I would request to reflect a bit on such reality shows, their ethics and whether such "fun" shows are OK when so much social and physical lives are at stake.
SHAME – SHAME – SHAME
Uni Lever Pakistan and Ammna Haq.
Why are some people so impossible…this is for @NIDA @Faisal. Are you from the PR firm Unilever's hired….
Let me reiterate…
1. No clause in the world allows the death of the participant. Negligence cannot be ‘waived’. What we are after is the ‘FACT’ of matter, if negligence did occur. If it is proven that it is, than all parties to the contract will be punishable.
2. Anyone who suppresses a news report, is punishable under the law of the country.
3. The reason why the family had to resort to reporting on blogs and new media is because the traditional media was not willing to report on the issue.
4. Compensation must be provided to the family under a moral code if not a legal code.
Until the footage of the videos are released (someone please sub-poena them) we cannot be sure that the production company is or is not at fault. One report by Times of India said that the director increased the time for the stunt, more so than required. Was that so…..than we have an issue on our hands wrt negligence which voids any contract or waivers.
The same is for autopsy reports. Until then Unilever can only be pressured to release them as soon as possible. That's all the blogosphere is doing.
@Umair Mohsin: I don't do follow up comments normally but just to put some records straight. If you had taken the trouble to check my profile, you wouldn't be asking the question if I was hired by anyone.
Since you are after "FACTS" as you reiterate, I would suggest you read Adil Najam's views too. And besides that, catch a flight to Thailand, where, as Adil notes, the matter is under police invesitigation. You will have better access to FACTS there I guess.
Stay well.
One other interesting thing that came to surface in all of this is the behavior of DAWN Newspaper and TV Channel for showing continuous reluctant attitude in publishing and airing this incident. I really wish they should not have come on the radar like this. Now we know that not to trust DAWN and affiliates. They have lost the credibility for good. The TV channel anchors some have very good contacts inside Mindshare and Unilever and also some are personal friends with Amina Sheikh.
Let us know if you need us to sign a peition against the sponsors. They should definitely compensate the family.
I am sick of hearing different versions of this incident. Nobody knows what has actully happened.
Saad was my cousin .. he was full of life and a very gifted person.
bdw .. Most of you probably don't know.
Saad was evicted in the middle of the show. But he came back on the wild card. Hmmmm … Wild card by whom ?? the producers/program managers. They want saad to win this contest cause he was tall smart and handsome and was also a model too. They want him to be the face of their product CLEAR MEN. Thats the reason they got him back .. How lame.
He was drowned in front of the entire crew, even yelled for help .. but no one made any effort to safe him. Even now after all this have'nt got the gutts to speak out. How can they live just like that. They are not humans.
Plus, I don't understand why the agency responsible is so reluctant to give us (his family) the video tapes. They are making all sort of stories to cover this up.
And specially the rest of the contestants, they are not saying a single word. Bladdy cowards.
I hope some of you are even doing what they are saying. As i said before i doubt the emotions will help the family.
@Hassan Shah you are a lawyer right, please get in touch with unilever legal team or open a case in the courts and inform us on Monday. Lets now get some action rather than just big legal words.
@Dania, saftey precautions? when the water is murky even if everyone jumps in you cant really find the body and thats what happened. By the way the 6 minute story is false it took more than half an hour just because of that. Also yes if one of my relatives died in an accident i would call it an accident however aggrieved
Unilever is as i have heard working with the family for settlement and i believe if thats not good enough we should do whatever in our power is to make sure they change it.
Till then it would be better to stay calm.
@Adeel: There was no life guard or any other protection available to the participants…now you may say that the water was murky blah blah blah…it doesn't change the facts…it has been so many days and Unilever is still working on a financial settlement?? It's not a NASA mathematical issue they are working on. It would not take more than 1 day to make a settlement for the family if Unilever is really serious about it. So stop whining and explain the same to your employer (if you work for Unilever)
@Obi Wan Kenobi: Just copy/print this web page and start faxing/emailing at their London and Rotterdam offices. Keep us updated if you get any response.
Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qSfiraQEdY