Zainub (
Humaima Malik) is sentenced to death. Mustafa (
Atif Aslam) advises her to tell everyone her story before she dies. She is allowed a last wish by the President of Pakistan and she tells her story to a large gathering of media.
.
She says that during the partition of the subcontinent her family migrated from Delhi to Lahore. Her parents had a lot of daughters and then her mother (
Zaib Rahman) gave birth to a child who is a
hermaphrodite. Due to her family’s deteriorating financial situation, Her father Hakim Sahib(
Manzar Sehbai) wants to kill the child at its birth but the mother doesn't let him. The child, named Saif Ullah, is home-schooled by a master and becomes very skilled at sketching. Though he is immensely disliked by Hakim Sahib.
Zainub gets married and then divorces because she refuses to have a child due to her husband’s financial situation. Meanwhile Zainub’s mother keeps getting pregnant with babies who are still born. Zainub gets
tubal ligation done on her mother to prevent future pregnancies. Hakim Sahib finds out about the surgery and is furious with Zainub.
Zainub discovers Saif Ullah while he’s wearing a woman’s clothes and is greatly perturbed by this and consults with Mustafa about Saifi. Mustafa takes Saifi to a guy who is in charge of drawings/paintings on trucks. Saifi is teased by perverts there and returns home after work crying his eyes out. Zainub tells him to be brave and that their father would be very happy when he sees Saifi’s earnings.
.
Saqa
Kanjar(
Shafqat Cheema) asks Hakim Sahib to teach Nazra
Quran to children in his household. Upon finding out that Saqa is a Kanjar, Hakim Sahib denies his request. Saifi is tricked into getting inside a truck at work and is raped by several men at the painting place where he works. Mustafa arrives at the scene but is fooled by the men there into believing that Saifi has left for home. Saifi is found later that night by a
shemale and is returned to his house. Hakim Sahib, upon learning that his son was raped, chokes and kills his son with a plastic bag, but not before Zainub sees him doing it.
.
A police officer asks Hakim Sahib for 2 lacs in bribe if Hakim wants his son’s
postmortem reports to remain a secret (so that people may not find out about his son’s gender). Hakim Sahib is forced to give the police officer the sum of money a
masjid committee entrusted him with for building a mosque. Hakim Sahib is then forced to go to Saqa Kanjar to teach Quran to earn money to pay back his debts. At home Hakim Sahib washes and irons the notes of money Saqa gave him in advance, considering them dirty.
.
Mustafa smuggles Ayesha (
Mahira Khan), Mustafa’s love interest and singing partner, to a concert where they both sing. Later Hakim Sahib is asked by Mustafa’s father for his daughter’s hand, but he says no pointing out that he wouldn’t marry his daughter in a
Shiah family.
.
The Masjid committee asks Hakim Sahib for their money back. Hakim then goes to Saqa who proposes that Hakim should have a daughter with Saqa’s daughter (
Iman Ali) for money. Saqa would keep the child if it was a girl and Hakim could take it if it was a boy. Hakim agrees to this, but asks Saqa not to disclose this pact.
Mustafa and Ayesha, and Hakim Sahib and Mina (
Iman Ali), get married simultaneously. When Hakim Sahib returns home after spending the night with Mina, Zainub tells him that she got Mustafa and Ayesha married. Hakim goes crazy with anger and beats her up.
.
A reporter while listening to zainub's story finds her innocent before zainub ends the story. The reporter calls up a guy who works with the President to get the death sentence postponed or get the case reopened. But he denies any help.
.
Hakim Sahib tells his friends at the Masjid committee that he is very fed up with his daughter Zainub, and that either of them would die at the hands of the other. The reporter calls the official again and pressurizes him to release Zainub.
.
Meanwhile Mustafa passes his exams and becomes a doctor. Mina tells Hakim that she had a brother from her father’s first (
chaste) wife (the step brother turns out to be Hakim Sahib himself).
The reporter calls the ministry official again.
.
Hakim Sahib and Mina have a daughter. He asks Mina to give their daughter to him and he’ll leave the city to keep her safe from the kanjars. Saqa overhears this and kicks Hakim out of his house. He tells Hakim that if he ever tried to take the baby girl away he would take all his daughters and turn them into cheap prostitutes.
Later Mina comes to Hakim sahib’s place to give him his daughter. Upon finding out who the child is Hakim’s wife fights with him and he beats her up. She then tells her daughters about their father’s shameful acts. Zainub tells her father that they will all leave the house the following day and if he tried to stop them she will kill him.
Saqa Kanjar arrives at Hakim sahib’s place with some men and crashes open the main door. Hakim sahaib tries to kill his baby girl to save her from Saqa but is killed by a fatal blow on the head by Zainub. Saqa and his men search the house for the baby. He asks Zainub where the baby was and she replies that her father killed the baby and had disposed the body.
.
The police officer in charge of Zainub’s death tells the reporters that it was time for them to leave.
Zainub says that she took revenge from her father for giving birth to her. She questions why only killing someone is a crime and why giving birth is not. She asks that why was having legitimate children and then making their life hell is right, but having illegitimate children wasn’t. She asks that if parents who couldn’t adequately provide for their children give birth to them. She argues that giving birth to children one can’t afford should be a considered wrong and a crime too.
.
Zainub is then hanged.
.
The reporter, Rashda, speaks on the news about what Zainub had just said.
The president calls a meeting about what Zainub had just questioned.
.
The movie ends up showing Zainub's family struggling by opening a small restaurant outside their palace looking house. The daughters of the hakim make it possible to earn in a respectable way. They slowly but gradually builds up a cafe named "Zainab's cafe" which helps them to raise their living standard. The hakim sisters finally makes it big with a small start. They also takes care of the their eighth sister that they saved from her father's brutality.
