Anupam Kher's speech on Kashmiri pandits edited out, actor objects

Anupam Kher, who was part of a charity initiative Ummeed-E-Kashmir in Delhi, is angry that his speech on Kashmiri pandits at the event was edited out. Not allowing it to go on air, when the recording of the event was telecast, he said, was unfair.

Actor Anupam Kher, who was part of a charity initiative

in Delhi on October 18, is miffed with Zee TV for editing out his speech on Kashmiri pandits. Not allowing it to go on air, when the concert was telecast on Sunday, he said, was unfair. Kher had read out a few lines from journalist Rahul Pandita's book Our Moon Has Blood Clots.

"Being a Kashmiri Pandit, mujhe is baat ka poora ehsaas haouti ki jab aap apne gharon se uprooted ho jaate hain how much it means emotionally. It is my responsibility as a citizen of the country to tell people how love and compassion are as much needed for such people as the materialistic help that we provide," Anupam said in the video that he shared.

A number of Bollywood personalities, including Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan and Farhan Akhtar, took part in the event to raise money for victims of the recent Kashmir floods. The event was organised in association with Hindustan Times.



The actor shared the edited out part of his speech and wrote on Twitter, "Happy to be part of #UmmeedEKashmir initiative. But I am sad that the portion where I talk about the plight of Kashmiri Pandits was deleted. My heart goes out for the flood victims of J&K and it is my duty as an Indian to appeal for them which I did. But why cut my appeal for KPs? I had read out a brief chapter from @rahulpandita's book "Our Moon has Blood Clots" depicting horrific night of Jan19,1990 faced by KPs."



In an interview to The News Minute, Anupam said, "We were talking about human suffering, about what happens when people are uprooted as has happened with the floods – in that context I raised the suffering of Kashmiri Pundits and I don’t see any contradiction in what I said. What makes it worse is that I had informed the producers of the programme that I would be reading a small portion from the book Our Moon has Blood Clots (by journalist Rahul Pandita) which detailed the terrible events that occurred 24 years ago."



Reacting to the development, Business Head Zee TV Pradeep Hejmadi said, "Hum Hain Umeed E Kashmir is a platform that is aimed at uniting people all across India to raise funds to rebuild homes and infrastructure in Kashmir and Assam. All comments by celebrities (who were associated with the cause) was edited to a maximum of 3 minutes in duration and only portions that were relevant to the initiative were retained for the four hour telecast across 35 channels of Zee."