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Our Correspondent in Bombay
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray criticized "pro-Pakistani" and "fundamentalist" Muslims on Tuesday night for opposing the screening of the Hindi film Gadar.
In a statement in the Shiv Sena newspaper Saamna, Thackeray, who is the editor, said that Muslims living in ghettos are creating mini-Pakistans in the country. "They are staying in India, but are more concerned about the honour of Pakistan," he charged.
In the film the heroine, a Muslim girl [Amisha Patel] is saved by a Sikh truck driver [Sunny Deol]. She falls in love with him and gets married to him and settles down in India. But when she goes back to Lahore to meet her parents, they do not allow her to go back to her husband in India.
When the truck driver reaches Lahore in search of his wife, he is told to shout the slogan, 'Pakistan Zindabad'. "When the Muslims in India see this scene, they clap," Thackeray alleged.
"How can those irreligious secularists accept a situation where Muslims living here can express concern for Pakistan's honour, but Hindus living in India cannot even speak of Hindutva?" he demanded.
"Where are the secularists like Dilip Kumar, Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi? Why do they not come out in the open and criticise such things," he asked.
"Amarnath yatris never get privileges, but Haj pilgrims get cheaper flights and stay in hotels at subsidised rates," he remarked. "Shiv Sainiks are being indicted in the Srikrishan Commission case. But Muslims creating nuisance go scot-free and do not even face a lathi-charge."
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