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'If any Hindu is targeted after this...': 'Kashmir Files' Vivek Agnihotri warns
Israel filmmaker Nadav Lapid's 'vulgar… propaganda' comment on 'The Kashmir Files' has sparked a massive row.
Vivek Agnihotri, director of 'The Kashmir Files', tweeted a 'warning' Monday amid the festering row over Israel filmmaker Nadav Lapid's 'vulgar... propaganda' remarks last week about the controversial film. "If any Hindu is targeted in Kashmir after this, you know who has the blood on his/her hand... Pl save this tweet," Agnihotri said.
He claimed The Resistance Front (an offshoot of terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba) was being given 'ideological support' from a Government of India platform - an unspoken reference to Lapid's comments at the International Film Festival of India that was held in Goa last week.
"Less than a week after Islamist terrorists were given ideological support openly from GOI’s platform #IFFI2022, The Resistance Front (a front of LeT) has issued a list of Kashmiri Hindus to be targeted by its terrorists..." Agnihotri claimed.
With that tweet he attached photos of Lapid speaking at the film festival in Goa and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, who has claimed the BJP promote the film to demonise Muslims, especially Kashmiris.
READ | BJP promoting 'Kashmir Files' to demonise Muslims, alleges Mehbooba
Agnihotri also attached images from kashmirfight.com that shared what it claimed was the list of Kashmiri Hindu government employees to be killed.
"Pic 1/2 Cause. Pic 3/4 Effect," Agnihotri declared.
Lapid, an award-winning filmmaker who was chairperson of the jury at the Goa film festival, triggered a massive row after he called 'The Kashmir Files' a 'propaganda movie' that had no place at any film festival.
READ | 'Someone needs to speak up...': Lapid defends 'Kashmir Files' remark
'The Kashmir Files' - written and directed by Agnihotri, and starring Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty and others - is offered as a fact-based narration of the Pandits' exodus from the Valley in the 1990s, when militancy was rampant.
READ | 'Aim was never to insult people…': Nadav Lapid on 'Kashmir Files' row
The movie has been hailed by BJP leaders and several party-ruled states granted it tax-free status when it was screened in theatres.
Lapid's remarks were also panned by diplomats from his home nation.
READ | 'Hitler great…': Israel envoy's anti-Semitic hate in 'Kashmir Files' row
Israel's ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, called on him to apologise and said he should be 'ashamed' of his words.
The filmmaker - who told an Israel news website he had been taken aback by the intensity of the outrage, and that he said what he did because 'in countries (where people are) increasingly losing the ability to speak your mind... someone needs to speak' - later apologised and said he had only expressed his opinion.
Agnihotri indicated a refusal of that apology, declaring, "I don’t care..."
