Playing With Fire- Pakistani Firecracker Veena Malik in Hot Water (Again) Over Provacative Magazine Cover

Lollywood actress Veena Malik was once again in the eye of a firestorm of controversy after a racy photo shoot for the cover of the December 2011 issue of FHM India magazine. The pictures show a nude or semi-nude Malik with her arms strategically crossed and the initials 'ISI' stenciled on one of them. The ISI- or Interservices Intelligence Directorate- is Pakistan's national intelligence agency. The text adjacent to the stencil says 'Hand in the end of the world, too?'

Indian newsstand displaying one version of the FHM magazine cover featuring Malik

Granted it doesn't take much to provoke outrage in Pakistan these days, but Malik's photo shoot and the FHM cover have done just that.

For her part, Malik has filed a £3m million defamation suit against the publisher, Maxposure Media Group, claiming the final images used by FHM on the cover were doctored [not sure if she means the nudity, the ISI stencil or both- NANESB!]. FHM and the publisher are reportedly filing a counter suit.

Another version of the FHM India cover features a semi-nude Malik clad only in an ammo belt and clenching the pin of a grenade in her teeth. Both version feature an ISI tattoo on Malik's arm, provoking outrage in her native Pakistan

I think this is the part where I tell you that Malik is no stranger to controversy.

In 2010, the actress testified before cricket's international governing body against her ex-boyfriend- Mohammed Asif from the Pakistani national team- in a match-fixing scandal.

Later that year, she appeared on the Indian version of Big Brother- called Bigg Boss- and raised hackles in her native Pakistan after she was filmed cuddling with one of her housemates on the reality show.


What really put the Pakistani bombshell on the map was her January 2011 on-air confrontation with an Islamic mufti critical her conduct while on the reality show and preforming in Bollywood.

Earlier this year, she was unscathed after her car was totalled in a hit and run collision on an expressway between Lahore and Islamabad, leading some to speculate the accident was an attempt on her life.

Of the uproar in her homeland, Malik said in an interview with the UK's Guardian "This attitude, I'm sorry, is in the society. When they say they have become modern, grown up, that's wrong. They still live in the stone age."

However, shortly after the FHM India magazine hit the newsstands her father disowned her, saying her actions on Indian soil was "the height of humiliation for Pakistan" [Really? The most wanted terrorist leader in the world getting shot dead by US Navy SEALS a few hundred yards from the front gate of Pakistan's equivalent of West Point doesn't rate? NANESB!].


I actually first heard of the FHM cover flap from Weasel Zippers earlier this month, but took my own sweet time updating it despite older articles about Malik drawing increased traffic.

When I finally got around to doing some online searches earlier tonight, Google's auto-suggest hinted at an ominous development when I began typing in 'Veena Malik' and it suggested 'Veena Malik missing'.

Sure enough, the Times of India is reporting that Ms. Malik has gone missing after wrapping up work on her latest film Mumbai 125 Km in Gorageon. The film's director said he received a text message where she apologized for seeming distracted on the set. Her manager has also been unable to get in contact with her.