Pulwama fallout: Top Bollywood union demands complete ban on Pakistani artists

All India Cine Workers Association on Monday announced a total ban on Pakistani actors and artists working in the Indian film industry. The decision comes in the wake of a dastardly terror attack on a CRPF convoy in Kashmir’s Pulwama district. Here’s the official notice released by the top cinema body: 

All India Cine Workers Association announce a total ban on Pakistani actors and artists working in the film industry. #PulwamaAttack pic.twitter.com/QpSMUg9r8b

— ANI (@ANI) February 18, 2019

The film wing of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) Saturday had asked music label companies to stop working with Pakistani singers. "We have verbally communicated to Indian music companies like T-Series, Sony Music, Venus, Tips Music etc to not work with Pakistani singers. These companies should stop it immediately or we will take action in our own style," Amey Khopkar, head of the MNS Chitrapat Sena told PTI.

Recently, Bhushan Kumar's T-Series had collaborated with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Atif Aslam for two different singles. "They have removed their songs (from the company's YouTube channel) post our warning," Khopkar claimed.

In 2016, after the Uri attacks, the Raj Thackeray-led party had similarly set a 48-hour deadline for all Pakistani artists working in India to leave the country.

At least 42 CRPF personnel were killed last week in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir when a Jaish suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 80 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district that also left many critically wounded. More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora in south Kashmir.