Mumbai: Reacting to Pakistan’s interior minister’s comment on providing security to Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, the Shiv Sena Tuesday said he should first look into law and order problems in his own country.
Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut criticised Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik for his statement and said that “the Indian government is capable of protecting its citizens. They (Pakistan) should not meddle in our internal affairs. Our government is not answerable to Pakistan.”
“Pakistan (leaders) should instead look into protecting the minorities in their own country. They should pay attention to their affairs. They should protect temples, which are being demolished by militant groups there,” he added.
Raut said Pakistan is facing serious law and order problems. He also alleged that it is running terrorist organisations within the country and that it is an anarchic state.
Raut added that ideally Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde should respond to Malik’s comments, but that he doesn’t expect him to do so.
File photo of Shah Rukh Khan. AFP
“Going by the statements which Shinde makes, it seems that he is the home minister of Pakistan,” Raut said.
Malik had Monday said that India should provide security to Shah Rukh Khan, wading into a controversy triggered by Jamaat-ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed who said that the star could move to Pakistan following his comments on being a Muslim.
The 47-year-old actor 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 to what they refer to my original homeland,” Khan wrote.
IANS
