Worry about your own minorities, India tells Pak

New Delhi: Pakistan should worry about minorities in its own country, India’s Information Minister Manish Tewari and Home Secretary RK Singh said on Monday in response to Pakistan minister Rehman Malik’s statement that New Delhi should provide security to actor Shah Rukh Khan.

Both Tewari and RK Singh spoke in near identical terms to decry Pakistani interior minister’s statement in Islamabad on the Bollywood star, who found himself in the thick of another controversy after his comments on being a Muslim led to Jamaat-ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed saying he could move to Pakistan.

“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 here.

He said it would be better for Pakistan if Malik paid attention to domestic matters of his own country rather than worry 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.

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 what they refer to my original homeland,” added the superstar of Hindi cinema.

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”.

“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.