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Actor Aymen Saleem called out the portrayal of abuse as romance or bold storytelling after a television drama showed a woman tied up by her husband to prevent her from leaving him.

Saleem’s post on her Instagram story comes a few days after an episode of Mann Mast Malang showed Kabir, played by Danish Taimoor, tying the wrists and ankles of his wife Riya (Sahar Hashmi) to keep her from leaving his house.

Throughout the scene, Kabir keeps calling his wife “meri jaan” (my love) and as she turns to leave, he grabs onto her arm, spins her around and dips her in his arms as the dramatic background music turns romantic — minutes before he ties her up. When Riya says night will fall again and she would attempt to run away a second time, Taimoor’s character says, “The night will return and you will never forget it.”

In the following scene, Kabir tells another character that he wants Riya to live with him and belong to him. The undertones of the show imply that Kabir, the “hero”, loves his wife so much that he’s going to extreme lengths to keep her with him.

“Enough is enough. I’m deeply disturbed by the way a recent drama is portraying abuse — tying up a woman with ropes, showing it in romantic or bold light, and then normalising it as part of a love story,” Saleem wrote.

“This isn’t entertainment. It’s dangerous storytelling.”

Saleem said that in a country where women already faced so much within a marriage, such as “patriarchy, emotional and physical abuse and societal pressure,” media had the power to reinforce or challenge toxic norms.

The Paristaan actor maintained that dramas should offer relief, empowerment and progress, instead of showing narratives that justified “harm in the name of love.”

“We’ve made strides in showcasing strong, self-aware female leads and breaking generational curses. Why are we slipping back?”

She urged writers, producers, television channels and especially actors to choose scripts and stories responsibly because of the influence they had and because people looked up to them.

“This is not just fiction — this shapes culture,” Saleem said.

It’s important to remember that these scenes don’t reflect love — they normalise abuse, presenting coercion and violence as romantic gestures and that’s not okay.