The two were to come to Pakistan to attend Kaifi Azmi festival to be arranged by Karachi Arts Council.
Bollywood veterans Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi have cancelled their visit to Pakistan following Pulwama attack in Kashmir.
The two were to come to Pakistan to attend Kaifi Azmi festival to be arranged by Karachi Arts Council.
The two-day festival to be held on February 23-24 at Karachi Arts Council will pay tribute to Shabana Azmi’s father and celebrated poet Kaifi Azmi.
Several known personalities from Pakistan and across the border were invited to attend the event.
Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi had earlier confirmed that they will be visiting Pakistan for the conference.
However, the suicide attack in Kashmir made them change their decision.
Taking to Twitter, Javed Akhtar announced that he and his wife will not be attending the two-day event.
Kranchi art council had invited. Shabana and me for a two day lit conference about Kaifi Azmi and his poetry . We have cancelled that . In 1965 during the indo Pak war Kaifi saheb had written a poem . “ AUR PHIR KRISHAN NE ARJUN SE KAHA “ ” he wrote.
At least 44 Indian paramilitary soldiers were killed on Thursday in a suicide attack in Indian-occupied Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
Condemning the attack, Shabana said that she is “filled with pain and grief”.
“For the first time in all these years, I feel weakened in my belief that people to people contact can force the establishment to do the right thing. We will need to call halt to cultural exchange,” she said.
“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 added.
The attack in Kashmir saw explosives packed inside a van rip through buses in a convoy of 78 vehicles carrying some 2,500 members of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Two blue buses carrying around 35 people each bore the brunt of the massive blast, heard miles away, around 20 kilometres from the city of Srinagar on the main highway to Jammu.
