The drama Bismil had a heartbreaking twist in episode 29 when Musa kills himself after his wedding to Moomal falls apart. This event was the catastrophic aftermath of the escalating feud within the family after the father Tauqeer (played by Nauman Ijaz) refuses to attend Musa’s wedding because both the son and the mother refused to accept his second wife Masooma (played by the brilliant Hareem Farooq) in to the family. Tauqeer also taunts the son by reminding him that his in-laws won’t accept the marriage because once people find out he’s been cut off by his wealthy father, they won’t accept him.
Bismil: who is the real villain: Masooma or Tauqeer?
Social media is endlessly debating about who is the real villain of ‘Bismil’ with more fingers blaming Masooma as the perpetrator behind the family falling apart, and we agree with this take! From the start of the show, we see how Masooma is attracted to wealth, which is why she rejects Zubair’s proposal because she wanted a better life. When Masooma starts working, she first tries to seduce Musa and then goes after the father.
She is also the one who hinder’s Tauqeer’s plans to attend the wedding by silently switching off his phone in episode 28 so that he doesn’t get a call from the mother or his son.
But let’s also not forget one thing: Masooma became the villain we see her for today because of the accident that happened solely due to Musa. In episode 1, her father is hit by a running car, whose driver was actually Musa. Rather than stopping to help the man immediately by taking him to the hospital, he instead goes to his birthday event where he tells Tauqeer everything, who sends his team to hush up the matter. When Masooma threatens to take the matter to court, the team forces her to accept the money for the treatment because they weren’t as rich or well-connected like Tauqeer and his family. But Masooma’s father loses his job because he is crippled from the waist down, and he is the breadwinner of the family which causes a strain until she decides to get a job in order to provide all the expenses.
Masooma was surely a vain woman who only liked being wealthy, but her pursuit of Tauqeer and marrying him was only fuelled by revenge for her father’s disability, and to provide her parents with a better life.
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Hareem Farooq sums up our take beautifully when during an interview with Something Haute, she pointed out that Masooma wasn’t an evil person, but rather she was someone who was pushed into doing evil things because of the way life had treated her.
Read more: Hareem Farooq opens up on why she chose not to go on a crash diet for ‘Bismil’
Masooma is not the only villain of the show, but so is the husband, Tauqeer, who was quick to abandon his family for another woman. His infatuation with Masooma started in episode 4 when she offers him small compliments like how his shirt brings out the colour of his eyes, something he thinks his wife had never noticed.
Bismil: let’s not blame the seductress without also calling out the married man who went along with the affair
He was the one who chose to marry Masooma and kept it a secret for several episodes from his family, until it was the maid Rosa who revealed his second marriage to the wife Reham in episode 15. He has the opportunity to divorce Masooma after Musa urges him to do so, but rather than following through with it, he ends up blaming both Reham and Musa for refusing to accept his decisions. In episode 28, Tauqeer refuses to attend the wedding and taunts Musa that his in-laws won’t accept him once they find out that his father had cut him off. 
We completely agree that Masooma was absolutely wrong to wreck a family and seduce a married man, knowing that his wife is unaware about it. But can we exclude the married man’s involvement in all of this? Absolutely not. Pakistani dramas have a long history of punishing the seductress who tried to initiate an affair with a married man, rather than holding both of them accountable. Think back to Sara from ‘Humsafar’ who spent the entire drama trying to plot the breakup of Ashar and Khirad. But by the end of the drama, Sara is the one who has killed himself, and Ashar is forgiven for having kicked his pregnant wife out of the house and never checking up on her or their child for so long.
We have been quick to call out the vain, self-centred woman (and rightfully so!) for chasing the married man, but has anyone questioned why a married man like Tauqeer couldn’t say no to another woman? Tauqeer knew that the affair had traumatised both Reham and his son, Musa, and yet refused to call off his marriage to Masooma. He isn’t just a passive player, but an active participant in the tragic turn of events that led to Musa’s death. So when we blame Masooma, let’s also not forget that all of this wouldn’t have played out had Tauqeer coldly shut her down the same way Musa did back in episode 1.
