NEW DELHI: Reacting to Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s call for provision of security to actor Shahrukh Khan, an Indian home office official said that the country was capable of protecting its citizen, and “Malik should mind his own business and worry only about the security of Pakistanis”.
Addressing reporters in New Delhi, Indian Home Secretary RK Singh said that protecting Indian citizens was the government’s responsibility and concerns from outside the country were uncalled for.
Shahrukh Khan found himself in the thick of another controversy after his comments on being discriminated as a Muslim led to Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed saying the star could move to Pakistan if he had some security concerns.
The 47-year-old actor wrote in an op-ed for a local publication: “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 neighboring 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 superstar of Hindi cinema.
He went on to 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”.
“Ironically, I was interrogated at the airport for hours about my last name when I was going to promote the film in America for the first time,” said the filmstar