Daily Times

NEW DELHI: Yesterday, the Maharashtra Chitrapat Sena, a wing of political party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) gave an ultimatum to all the Pakistani artistes working in India to leave India in 48 hours and return to their home country and now, Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) too has taken a similar stance and has threatened that they wouldn’t allow ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ and ‘Raees’ to release in India if Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan’s roles aren’t completely chopped from ‘ADHM’ and ‘Raees’ respectively.

As per latest reports on a web portal, BJP General Secretary of Maharastra, Sanjay Upadhyay is adamant about writing to all the exhibitors to not give any window (screens) to these two films and that there shouldn’t be any law and order problem owing to the release of these two films.

He added that BJP would only allow ‘ADHM’ and ‘Raees’ to hit the silver screens if Fawad and Mahira’s scenes are completely deleted from the films and that there should not be a glimpse of these actors in their respective films. Upadhyay further added that we don’t have dearth of good talented artistes in our country and that Indian filmmakers don’t even need to look at Pakistan to cast good artistes in their films.

He reiterated that that there are thousands of better and more deserving people in India waiting to get break in movies, and filmmakers must give them the priority rather than bringing artistes from the neighbouring country that is responsible for killing “innocent civilians” and soldiers of our country.

Amarjeet Mishra, Mumbai BJP General Secretary was quoted saying to the web portal that he doesn’t find any meaning of art from Pakistani artistes when their interests lie in their own land. He even went on to say that let alone artistes, no Pakistani should be allowed to come and work in India.

Filmmaker Mukesh Bhatt feels otherwise and comes out in support of Karan Johar. Bhatt was quoted saying to the portal that an Indian producer and director should not be penalised for no fault of his. He went on to add that whether Pakistani artistes should be allowed to work in Indian or not is a call that Government of India needs to take.

However, countering Bhatt was Censor Board Chief, Pahlaj Nihalani who feels that enough is enough. Nihalani opines that the screws need to be tightened between Indian and Pakistan. Although Nihalani agrees that art and culture have no boundaries, he is no mood to tolerate terrorism and said that the way the relations between Indian and Pakistan are, our nation should be the priority.