Bollywood shows solidarity for 'My Name is Khan'

Mumbai, Feb. 13 (ANI): In a display of solidarity among film fraternity, Bollywood actors thronged theatres in Mumbai to watch Shah Rukh Khan starrer 'My Name is Khan', despite threats from Shiv Sena.

Mahesh Bhatt, Shakti Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan's wife Gauri Khan came to watch 'My Name is Khan' on Friday, as it hit theatres.

"It is support to the values on which this country was created, - the values of democracy, the values of cultural pluralism and the values that we will respect. However, we may disagree with him but to grant him that space and not to muzzle him up through violent brutal means," Bhatt said.

"Like people go to their offices in the morning, we also work hard to make our films and in this there should be no politics and I don't belong to any political party I'm here to only support the film industry," Kapoor said.

Agitated over Shah Rukh Khan's remarks that he would wish to see Pakistani players participate in the IPL season 3, Shiv Sena activists had torn down film's posters and vandalized theatres in the run-up to the film's release.

Police took hundreds of Sena local leaders under preventive detention as they threatened to disrupt the film's screening.

Sena leadership has opposed Pakistani players participation owing to anger over the November 2008 terror attacks, suspected to have been carried out by ten Pakistani gunmen.

Fox Star Studios has bought the distribution rights for 'My Name Is Khan', in what is said to be the biggest distribution deal in Bollywood.

Trade analysts say there are at least 1.2 billion rupees riding on the film and if the western Mumbai-Maharashtra circuit is affected, it would affect almost 25 percent of the film's cinema revenues.

In the film, Shah Rukh Khan plays a man with Asperger's Syndrome who is a victim of the anti-Muslim bias in the US in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. (ANI)