Controversy erupted on Saturday morning when actor Naseeruddin Shah denied having commented on actor Anupam Kher's stand on the Kashmiri Pandits and their rehabilitation.
“I have not said any such thing, this is all misreporting,” Shah told ANI.
Shah, who was in Delhi on Friday to promote his latest film, ‘Waiting’ was quoted by PTI saying that Kher had never lived in the Valley and hence couldn’t take up the fight for Kashmiri Pandits. “A person who has never lived in Kashmir has started a fight for Kashmiri Pandits. Suddenly, he became a displaced person,” Shah was quoted as saying by PTI.
Earlier on Saturday, Kher had tweeted: “Shah Saab ki Jai Ho. By that logic NRI's should not think about India at all.”
Kher later told ANI that he had contacted Shah but Shah had denied saying anything. “He told me when I have never said all this for so many years then why will I say now?,” Kher told ANI.
In the same interview to PTI, Shah supported noted lyricist Javed Akhtar’s statements during his farewell speech in Rajya Sabha saying nobody has the right to question a person’s love for their motherland.
“I am sad that statements like these (referring to AIMIM MP Asaddudin Owaisi) are made and then they are not even condemned. Like Javed sahab said, ‘It is his right to say ’Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ I will say it with my choice not because somebody asks me to,’ I support him. Nobody has a right to question my love for my country,” he said.
Akhtar had slammed Owaisi for saying that he won’t chant ’Bharat mata ki jai’ because the Constitution does not ask him to do so. He had also condemned right-wing extremists who say Muslims should go to Pakistan.
