Veteran Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah has spoken about the film industry’s silence on the BJP leader’s remarks about Prophet Mohammed.
With particular emphasis on the three Khans of Bollywood – Salman, Shah Rukh, and Aamir, Shah said in an interview that the biggest stars in the country have too much to lose by speaking up about such important issues.
When asked about the silence of the film industry and the three Khans, over the Prophet Mohammed row, Shah said, “I cannot speak for them. I am not in the position they are in. I feel they think they would be risking too much. But then, I don’t know how they explain (it) to their own conscience about it. But I think they are in a position where they have too much to lose.”
Citing Aaryan Khan’s case as an example, he said, “What happened to Shah Rukh Khan and the dignity with which he faced it was admirable. It was nothing but a witch-hunt. He has kept his mouth shut. All he did was support Trinamool and applaud Mamata Banerjee. Sonu Sood gets raided. Anyone who makes any statement gets a response. Maybe I am next. I don’t know. (laughs) Though they won’t find anything.”
Aryan Khan was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a drugs bust aboard a Goa-bound cruise ship last year and was subsequently sent to jail for several weeks before being granted bail. Aryan and five others were given a clean chit by the NCB in its charge sheet recently, due to a ‘lack of sufficient evidence’.
When asked about Akshay Kumar’s recent output and Vivek Agnihotri’s blockbuster film The Kashmir Files, Shah said, “They want to be on the winning side.”
He called The Kashmir Files ‘an almost fictionalised version of the suffering of Kashmiri Hindus’ and said that the ‘government is promoting it’.
Vikram Doraiswami
Andrew Quintman
Lord Jitesh Gadhia 
