Daily Times

In the light of the MNS threat to Pakistani actors, Zee’s head honcho Subhash Chandra has said Zindagi will now have Indian shows about Muslim community.

Hours after Zee announced that it will pull out all the Pakistani shows from Zindagi, Subhash Chandra has said that the channel will revamp its format. According to the Zee head, Zindagi will now include Indian shows dealing with the native Muslim community. Chandra made the latest announcement via Twitter, clearing the air around speculations that Zindagi channel would be shut down. The latest development comes in the light of the looming controversy around MNS’s 48-hour deadline to all the Pakistani artists working in India, to leave the country.

On Saturday, Chandra had Tweeted that Zindagi was considering banning all Pakistani made television shows which were on air right now. He confirmed and said that the channel would be going for serious revamp in its broadcast now. Following the recent Uri attack which snowballed into a major conflict between the two nations, the film workers association of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had on Friday asked all Pakistani artists working in India to immediately leave the country. “We gave a 48-hour deadline to Pakistani actors and artists to leave India or MNS will push them out,” Amey Khopkar of MNS Chitrapat Sena had said. Khopkar had also threatened to beat up Pakistani artists, including those filmmakers who cast them in their productions. This was with major reference to Karan Johar and Shahrukh Khan. “Pakistani kalakaar toh maar khaayenge hi, saath mein jo yahan producer/director hain unko bhi peetenge (Pakistani artists will be beaten up and so will the producers and directors),” he said.

Pakistani artists including Fawad Khan, Mahira Khan, Atif Aslam, Ali Zafar and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan are the main target of MNS. While Fawad will next be seen in Karan Johar’s ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’, apart from a Dharma Productions’ film opposite Katrina Kaif, Mahira is set to make her Bollywood debut in SRK’s ‘Raees’. Other artists also keep travelling to India for work. As soon as the news calling for a ban on all these artists came out, Twitter got divided into two groups. Trends like #SayNoToPakArtists, #BoycottPakOrNot and #KickOutPakis also started doing the rounds. While there are some people who find it absolutely unnecessary to ban the artists because that’s not going to solve the problem of terrorism, there are some who fully support it and believe boycotting Pakistan will be a lesson to the country.