MUMBAI: Veteran actor Shabana Azmi on Friday said she and her husband, lyricist-writer Javed Akhtar, have decided not to attend Kaifi Azmi’s birth centenary celebrations in Karachi in the wake of Pulwama terror attack.
The couple was invited to Pakistan by the Karachi Arts Council for a two-day event.
@Javedakhtarjadu and I were invited for a 2 day event celebrating Kaifi’s Centenary and were truly looking forward to it. I appreciate that our hosts the Karachi Arts Council mutually agreed to cancel the event at the nth hour in the wake of Pulwama attack, Azmi posted on Twitter.
“Karanchi art council had invited Shabana and me for a two day lit conference about Kaifi Azmi and his poetry. We have cancelled that,” Akhtar added.
Azmi said after the attack, she feels weakened in her belief that people to people contact can force the establishment to do the right thing.
“We will need to call halt to cultural exchange… There is no way we can carry on with cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan even as our martyrs are laying down their lives for us. I stand in solidarity with the grieving families,” she wrote.
Azmi, however, said one should differentiate between the establishment and the people.
“But lets not lose sight of the fact that there is a difference between the Pakistani Establishment and the people of Pakistan and vice versa. On both sides of the border stand sisters and brothers divided by circumstances with which they had nothing to do,” she added.
(AGENCIES)
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