Daily Times

Former foreign minister and senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Asif on Saturday slammed Indian lyricist Javed Akhtar and veteran actress Shabana Azmi for calling off their plan to attend the literature festival in Karachi in the wake of an attack in Palwana in Indian-occupied Kashmir.

Responding to Akhtar’s cancellation announcement on social media a day earlier, Asif tweeted, ” The most privileged of Indian Muslims (are) protecting status and being apologetic about their identities, their conscience unmoved by atrocities endured daily by Kashmiris. Thousands blinded, martyred and orphaned… to them, this is not grim or outrageous.”

The two artists were invited to attend a two-day conference in Karachi in honour of Azmi’s father and widely-acclaimed Indian Urdu poet, Kaifi Azmi. The conference is scheduled for February 23 and February 24 at the Arts Council of Karachi.

In his tweet, Akhtar mentioned, “Karachi art council had invited Shabana and me for a two day lit conference about Kaifi Azmi and his poetry. We have cancelled that. In 1965 during the Indo Pak war, Kaifi saheb had written a poem: ‘Aur Phir Krishan Ne Arjun Se Kaha’.”

At least 44 Indian paramilitary soldiers were killed on Thursday in an attack at Srinagar-Jammu Highway in Awantipora area of Pulwama district. The attack saw an improvised explosive device (IED) rip through buses in a convoy of military buses, around 20 kilometres from the main city of Srinagar.

Published in Daily Times, February 17^th 2019.