When Shiv Sena Threatened Shah Rukh Khan Of Stalling My Name Is Khan If He Invites Pakistani Cricket Players In India For IPL ( Photo Credit – wikimedia / Balasaheb thakre ; Instagram / Shah Rukh Khan )
Advertisement
Bollywood films and controversies go hand in hand. Back in 2010, before the release of Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol’s ‘My Name Is Khan’, Shiv Sena’s founder and late politician Bal Thackeray warned the actor that his movie could get stalled. Read to know the scoop.
During the same year as the release of the film, while bidding at IPL, SRK expressed his desire to let Pakistani cricket players be a part of the same.
This obviously didn’t go well with Shiv Sena and late politician, Bal Thackeray who warned in a statement that Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘My Name Is Khan’ will be stalled if he doesn’t apologise for his statement on letting Pakistani players be a part of IPL.
Meanwhile, in a conversation with NDTV, SRK called the exclusion of Pakistani players during IPL ‘humiliating’ and said, “I think it’s actually humiliating to me as a KKR owner that this has happened.”
Shah Rukh Khan continued, “We are known to be good, we are known to invite everyone, and we should have. And if there were any issues, they should have been put out earlier so that everything could happen respectfully.”
The Swades actor added, “I truly believe that they should have been chosen. As a matter of fact, I’m not going to be the one who is opposite from what everyone else is saying but I wanted Abdul Razzaq. I think it was in the newspapers much earlier than even the auction started. Dada (Sourav Ganguly) was very keen.”
The relationship between India and Pak deteriorated after the 2008 attack in Mumbai and although the players were given NOCs from the Pakistan Cricket Board, nobody picked the players during the auction.
Talking about the concerns that team owners face in this kind of situation, Shah Rukh Khan added, “I am not giving an excuse and I truly believe Pakistani players are the best T20 players in the world. They are the champions. They are wonderful. But somewhere down the line there is an issue and we cannot deny it. There is an issue, we cannot keep saying ‘Oh this was wrong’. Yes maybe the way it was done was wrong, the way it is being carried out may be wrong. But you can’t keep on saying Koi issue nahi hai yaar, woh aa jate (There isn’t any issue, they could have come). There is an issue, let’s not deny it. Every day we blame Pakistan, every day they blame us, it is an issue.”
Commenting on Shiv Sena’s statement of stalling his film, SRK said keeping in mind the race attacks against Indian students in Australia, “There is going to be a section of people who have suddenly gotten up and have said, rightly or wrongly, ‘Australians will not be allowed to play’. So here is a set of people who are spending up to 70, 80, 90 crore rupees on trying to win a tournament and suddenly, even if you say this much to me, I’m like ‘Uh-oh, so should I take or shouldn’t I take him?’”
Shah Rukh Khan concluded, “So tomorrow, if we had known this, maybe even the Australians would not have been picked up. These issues always come prime on your head, the stakes are very high.”
