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India goes ballistic as Pakistan minister seeks SRK security

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD — Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan was on Tuesday at the centre of the latest round of sparring between two often uneasy neighbours with Pakistan’s minister Rehman Malik’s comment that India should provide the actor security prompting a sharp rebuke from New Delhi that Islamabad should mind its own ‘minorities’.

Malik said in Islamabad that the Indian government should provide security to Shah Rukh, in the thick of a controversy over his remarks on being a Muslim that led to Jamaat-ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed saying the star could move to 
Pakistan.

Addressing reporters in Islamabad at a reception hosted by the Indian High Commissioner, Malik added that people of both Pakistan and India love Shah Rukh, reported Geo TV on Tuesday.

“He is born Indian and he would like to remain Indian,” Malik told reporters on Monday at a reception organised by Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal to mark India’s Republic Day.

“But I will say...request to the government of India, please provide him security and I would like to request all Indian brothers and sisters and all those who talking negative against Shah Rukh they should know he is a movie star.

“He is loved as a star by the people of Pakistan and he is loved by the people of India so why to create some kind of hate,” he added.

India was quick to react.

Soon after Malik’s remarks were reported in the media, Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari and Home Secretary R.K. Singh said Pakistan should worry about the state of affairs in its own country.

Both Tewari and R.K. Singh spoke in near identical terms to decry Malik’s statement. “Instead of introspection of how minorities in India are being treated he (Malik) should contemplate how he can improve condition of minority in his country,” Tewari told reporters. He said it would be better for Pakistan if Malik paid attention to domestic matters of his own country rather than worrying about such things.

“Test of democracy is the way you treat your minority rather than majority. The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government has strived to see every citizen in the same light and given equal right under the constitution,” he said.

The home secretary spoke out too.

“We are quite capable of looking after security of our own citizens... let him (Malik) worry about security of his own,” he said.

Hafiz Saeed had said Shah Rukh could move to Pakistan if he does not feel safe in India after the superstar gave a first person account for Outlook Turning Points magazine, published in association with The New York Times newspaper.

Shah Rukh, one of Bollywood’s more articulate personalities, had written in Outlook Turning Points magazine, published in association with The New York Times: “I sometimes become the inadvertent object of political leaders who choose to make me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India.”

“There have been occasions when I have been accused of bearing allegiance to our neighbouring nation rather than my own country — this even though I am an Indian, whose father fought for the freedom of India. Rallies have been held where leaders have exhorted me to leave and return what they refer to my original homeland,” added the 47-year-old star.

He went on say that he became so sick of being mistaken for some crazed terrorist, “who co-incidentally carries the same name as mine that I made a film subtly titled ‘My Name Is Khan’ (and I am not a terrorist) to prove a point”.