“They are still roaming free”: Javed Akhtar points to 26/11 perpetrators on Pakistani soil

Lahore [Pakistan], February 21 (ANI): Noted poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar called out Pakistani terror at the Faiz Festival in Lahore last week, saying that the perpetrators and conspirators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks were still “roaming freely” in Pakistan.

A video of the poet-lyricist has gone viral on social media where he is purportedly heard speaking about “bitterness” in the hearts of Indians over the 26/11 attacks.
Responding to someone in the audience, he is purportedly heard as saying in the video, “When you visit your homeland, do you tell your fellow citizens, ‘we (Pakistanis) are good people, we don’t just bomb people but also greet with garlands?'”

“Blaming each other won’t solve our problems.

Aham baat yeh hai ki jo garam hai fiza, woh kam honi chahiye. Hum toh Bambaiye log hain. Hamne dekha wahan kaise hamla hua tha. Wo log Norway se toh nahi aaye the naa Egypt se aaye the, wo log abhi bhi aapke mulk me ghum rahe hain. Toh ye shikayat agar Hindustani ke dil mein ho toh aapko bura nahi manna chahiye.

(We saw how Mumbai was attacked. They (terrorists) came neither from Norway nor Egypt. They are still roaming freely in your country. So you shouldn’t be offended if there’s a grouse and bitterness in Indian hearts over the 26/11 attacks,” Akhtar said at the literary event held in the memory of renowned Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

“I wouldn’t hesitate to say that though we have organised so many grand functions of Nusrat (Fateh Ali Khan) sahab and Mehdi Hassan sahab in our country, you couldn’t organise a single event of Lata (Mangeshkar) ji,” Akhtar said.

At least 174 people, including 20 security force personnel and 26 foreigners, were killed and more than 300 injured in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008.

Ten Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists came to Mumbai via the sea route from Pakistan and carried out a series of coordinated attacks on India’s financial capital.