BREAKING! India-Pakistan tensions spill over into Bollywood, violence threatens a new movie’s...

BREAKING! India-Pakistan tensions spill over into Bollywood, violence threatens a new movie’s release

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In India’s Bollywood film industry, director producer Karan Johar, known as “ KJo,” hosts a popular star chat show called “Koffee with Karan” and enjoys a mainstream popularity in India comparable to Ryan Seacrest.

So it was shocking for Indians to see among their favourite celebrities, dressed in black, seem somberly on camera earlier this week to affirm his patriotism and beg that the release of his new movie — set for Oct. 28 — not be delayed or overshadowed by violence — just because it’s a Pakistani celebrity in it.

“I beseech you to understand one thing that over 300 Indian people within my team have set their blood, sweat and tears into my picture,” said Johar in the statement that was video. He assured to not work with actors from “the neighboring state” in the future — a pointed reference to celebrities from Pakistan.

Now these tensions are spilling over into the entertainment and media worlds in both countries, with the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association prohibiting many Pakistani actors and all Pakistani artists in future pictures, technicians and song writers fleeing Mumbai over concerns for their security.

Movie theaters in Pakistan have ceased showing Bollywood films, and no Indian-made movies and television shows will be aired there beginning Friday.

They have also declared a boycott of Johar’s film and threatened violence if the film is screened in theatres that were Indian.

The MNS looked unimpressed, vowing continuing agitation at local multiplexes even after Johar released his video supplication. After they tried to push their way into one multiplex during a protest already 12 protesters happen to be taking into judicial custody in Mumbai.

“We WOn’t permit any picture to be released that has Pakistani artists,” among the leaders, Amey Khopkar, told the News Agency that was Asian.

On Thursday, the president of the India’s Producers Guild, Mukesh Bhatt, met with India’s Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, to seek protection for movie theaters where “Ae Dil hai Mushkil, Johar’s picture will debut next Friday. In the movie, a Pakistani actor named Fawad Khan has a small role.

Labelling the MNS as his brothers that were “ who’ve gone ” Bhatt appealed for nonviolence at the release of the movie next week.

Some of Bollywood’s left leaning celebrities defended Johar, saying he was intimidated, while other critics lamented the sense of nationalistic passion that’s swept through India’s arty community in the aftermath of recent cross-border attacks.

Where the victim is made to confess that he’s a spy, probably just before he is executed Johar “appears to be caught in one of those hostage circumstances. In a way, he is a hostage, not only to a small political party that openly threatens to ‘educate a lesson’ to those using Pakistanis in their pictures, but also to the growing belligerence in our polity which makes it almost impossible to endure a diversity of opinions, ” Sidharth Bhatia wrote in the Wire news site on Thursday.

Bhatia continued: “The film industry is a perennially soft target due to its high profile and its swift buckling in to any such pressure, but don’t be surprised if shortly, reading Pakistani writers or being Facebook friends with Pakistanis and even writing about that nation could be declared anti-national. Any of us could then be turned into Karan Johar.”