She may have been dismissed as a Pakistani starlet when she appeared on Big Boss, but in Pakistan, Veena Malik has suddenly emerged as a brave, liberal voice not afraid to take on the fundoos with a bristling defiance not seen in recent times.

On a popular talk show on Express News, she frontally took on Mufti Abdul Qavi, who while describing her appearance on Big Boss — an Indian reality show —as an affront to Pakistan, and Pakistani women, also admitted that he had never it.

Malik's spontaneous, articulate, brave defence of women is particularly significant in a country where taking on the clergy is seen as signing one's own death warrant, and found an immediate echo in the liberal voices that are still struggling to come to terms with the brutal murder of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer who had criticised the misuse of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.