ISLAMABAD, July 5: For the second time in its fifteen-year history, the association that imports, copies and rents out video films in Pakistan has taken a decision not to import an Indian movie. Last time it was Bombay. This year, it is Border. Association members, who comprise movie importers and video shop owners insist that the move is voluntary but the video shop owners confide that the decision has been taken to prevent attacks by right wing fundamentalists.

``They come in and ask for the movie and when we give it to them, they attack the shop,'' says one Islamabad video rental shop owner talking about how the fundamentalists operate on a tip off that a controversial movie being rented out. So far there have been no cases where shops have been attacked because they have taken the precaution of not stocking the movie.

The decision by the video association has been taken ``in the light of the scenes that the movie has which go against Pakistan and Islam,'' says an association member at Rainbow Centre in Karachi which acts as Pakistan's centre of pirated video movies. All Indian movies that come into Pakistan are pirated.

``We pride ourselves on our timing,'' says a shopkeeper at Rainbow Centre, from where movie shops all over Pakistan get their copies of the latest movie. Shopkeepers here claim that they usually get the video copies of movies, even before they are released in India.'' All movies into Pakistan are smuggled in from Dubai, where entrepreneurs sell ``master prints.''

Once a ``master print'' is bought by a Pakistani ``distributor,'' it is then flown into Pakistan and copies are then sold to smaller distributors, who in turn sell it to movie shops throughout Pakistan. Usually, orders are placed well in advance and there is a bidding for ``rights'' that runs into millions.

In the case of Border, no rights have been sold. That does not mean that the movie is unavailable. Copies are discreetly handed to trusted clients in Rainbow Centre at rentals well above the regular charge.

``Such movies are sometimes good for business,'' says Muhammad Zubair, another shopkeeper in Islamabad.