'We know how to look after ourselves': Naseeruddin Shah responds to Imran Khan's dig at treatment of minorities in India

After Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan stirred the hotpot that is the ongoing controversy over Naseeruddin Shah’s comments on the 3 December Bulandshahr violence, the actor on Sunday responded to Imran’s remarks and asked him to stay away from “issues that don’t concern him”. [caption id=“attachment_5773471” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] FIle image of actor Naseeruddin Shah. Solaris images[/caption] The prime minister, while addressing an event to highlight the 100-day achievements of the Pakistan’s Punjab government in Lahore, had asserted on Saturday that his government is taking steps to ensure that religious minorities in the country get their due rights, which was also a vision of the country’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He had said that his government will ensure that the minorities feel safe, protected and have equal rights in ‘New Pakistan’. “We will show the Modi government how to treat minorities… Even in India, people are saying that minorities are not being treated as equal citizens,” he said, referring to Shah’s statement. In response, Shah told The Sunday Express, “I think Mr Khan should be walking the talk in his own country instead of commenting on issues that don’t concern him. We have been a democracy for 70 years, and we know how to look after ourselves.” Shah found himself at the  centre of a major controversy  over his remarks on the spate of mob lynching cases in India. He made the statement after the  killing of a policeman in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr district  earlier this month. In a video interview with Karwan-e-Mohabbat India, the veteran actor had said the  death of a cow was being given importance over the killing of a policeman in India . He had said the “poison has already spread” and will be now difficult to contain it. “It will be very difficult to capture this jinn back into the bottle again. There is complete impunity for those who take law into their own hands… I feel anxious for my children because tomorrow, if a mob surrounds them and asks, ‘Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?’ they will have no answer. It worries me that I don’t see the situation improving anytime soon,” Shah had said. With inputs from PTI