Jaffar Elahi (Faysal Quraishi) forced Haya (Kinza Hashmi) to marry him at gunpoint so that she could never be with her love Zayan (Zain Baig), as revenge. Elahi is a powerful, influential man,so Haya decides that, since she has no escape, her only option is to join his household and accept him as her husband.
Not surprisingly, Haya initially suffers at the hands of Elahi’s family and his suspicious older first wife, who can all see that Jaffar is softening towards the pretty young girl. Jaffar grows closer to Haya and she becomes pregnant, giving the family an heir they never expected.
All of this could have been presented in a layered and intelligent way, showing Jaffar’s evolution into a better person who understands his mistakes. Instead, Haya is shown as the one with no self-respect and desperate to be with him despite his violent behaviour. The message from these shotgun wedding stories is that a woman’s consent does not matter, and after she is forced to sign a nikahnama she will accept anyone.