SRINAGAR/JAMMU: Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt yesterday declined to comment on his reported decision to join politics as he was presently preoccupied with his shooting schedule. “I am presently here shooting for ‘Lamhaa’ and would not like to comment on politics at the moment”, Sanjay told reporters here.
Sanjay on Thursday became the latest Bollywood star to join politics with the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party naming him as its candidate from the Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency in the general elections scheduled this year.
The star is here on a two-week shooting schedule for Rahul Dholakia’s “Lamhaa”, the shooting for which last year was interrupted by protesters at a number of places in the Valley.
Hundreds of locals turned out to watch the filming as it started yesterday on the banks of the Jhelum River in Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar.
One local fan of Sanjay, Waseem Raja, 29, had reached the Hotel Grand Palace at 4 a.m. to have a glimpse of his favorite star. He, in fact, jumped on the vehicle as Sanjay left the hotel for the shoot in the morning.
Raja said he had taken Rs.50,000 from his home and gone to Mumbai in 2007 to meet Sanjay, his favorite star. “I waited outside his house for four days, but could not meet him as the watchmen there told me he had gone to Bangkok for a film shoot.
“He has promised to meet me this evening and I am looking forward to those memorable moments,” Raja said as the crew of the film unit had a difficult time persuading him to wait till the evening.
Meanwhile, Omar Abdullah, on his first day in office as Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, yesterday said forces opposed to India-Pakistan friendship would “have to be defeated” and that his government would try to bring unity in the state.
“I would in my capacity continue to advise caution and continue to advise that the enemy is not Pakistan but the forces in Pakistan inimical to friendship between the two countries. It is those forces who have to be defeated and not Pakistan,” Omar told reporters.
Ties between the two countries have come under severe strain following the Mumbai terror attack for which India has blamed terrorists from Pakistan. But Omar said: “Good relations with Pakistan are required for the state to progress.” He noted that “tensions with Pakistan will neither benefit India nor Pakistan.”
In another development, the nine-day-long standoff between the militants and the Indian Army in the Bhatidar forested area of the Poonch district came to an abrupt end yesterday with the army’s assessment of militants having escaped the cordon. The army was now intensely combing the rugged terrain.
“The possibility of the terrorists having slipped out taking advantage of the rugged terrain and the prevailing climatic conditions cannot be ruled out,” said the statement issued yesterday by the army’s 16th Corps whose troops engaged the militants for nine days in the Bhatidar forests of Mendhar area of Poonch district.
For the past over a week the army had maintained that the militants were still holed up in the area exchanging intermittent gunfire with the surrounding troops.
Two army troopers, one special police officer (SPO) and four militants have been killed in this operation against the militants. However, the bodies of the militants claimed to have been killed in the army fire have not been recovered yet.
— With input from agencies
