“I am also an artiste and artistes don’t fall from the sky. Pakistani artistes have refused to condemn Uri terror attack. Why should our artists speak up for them?,” Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief told reporters here.
Stepping up his attack on Bollywood superstar Salman Khan for opposing the ban on Pakistani artistes in India, MNS chief Raj Thackeray today asked him to go and work there.
“Our soldiers don’t have any personal animosity with Pakistani soldiers. The bullets our soldiers face are not filmy. Salman gets up after being hit by a bullet,” Raj said, reacting to Salman’s remarks, adding “I have seen his tubelight blinker many a time.”
“I am also an artiste and artistes don’t fall from the sky. Pakistani artistes have refused to condemn Uri terror attack. Why should our artists speak up for them?,” Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief told reporters here.
Raj said the 50-year-old actor should work in Pakistan if he has so much love for artistes of the neighbouring country.
“Artistes should know its always ‘nation first’. Artistes are not inseparable from society. Is there a dearth of talent in our country?,” he said, adding those supporting Pakistani artists will face opposition from his party.
Raj said he does not buy the argument that there is no justification in banning Pakistani artists since they are not terrorists.
“How does that concern me if the people are good. I am seeing only terrorists who come to kill our people,” he said, adding film industry was only concerned about the business of their films.
Raj said what would happen if Indian soldiers keep aside their arms to hear a Ghulam Ali concert. “What will happen then. Are soldiers our servants? …They are protecting us.”
Interestingly, Raj is on good terms with Salman and is a regular visitor to the actor’s home during the Ganpati festival.
Salman had yesterday said artistes from Pakistan should not be treated like terrorists and art and terrorism should not be mixed.
Also the Shiv Sena slammed Salman Khan for coming out in support of Pakistani actors working in India, saying the actor keeps on talking “nonsense” as none from his family had laid their lives down for the country.
“No one from his (Salman’s) family has died for the country and hence, he keeps on talking nonsense. Even if you take a protest march to his house, it will not work and he will continue to talk so,” Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut told a press conference here.
He said the actor should be “kept in confinement” in his house so that he “does not speak his mind”.
“When the country is against terrorism and there are possibilities of a war with Pakistan, Salim Khan should keep his son locked in his house, because you never know what will he say and insult him (Salim),” Raut said, adding that Salman’s statement was “in contradiction” to his father’s “firm stance” against Pakistan.
The 50-year-old actor had yesterday said in Delhi that artistes from Pakistan “should not be treated like terrorists” and “art and terrorism should not be mixed”.
Mumbai-based Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association has passed a resolution to ban Pakistani actors from the industry in the wake of the Uri terror attack in Kashmir which left 19 soldiers of the Indian Army dead.