In its mouthpiece “Saamna,” the party showered praise on Akhtar and his one-time partner in script-writing Salim, who together wrote a number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed films in the 1970s and 1980s.
“Here is a true Muslim,” reads the headline of the editorial which says Javed has given an apt reply to the fundamentalists in the community and “respected the sentiments” of Muslim women. “Both Salim and Javed have always raised voices against fanaticism among Muslims. Javed has received threats after he commented on the fatwa and called those issuing it stupid and insane, but he is not the one to be scared by such threats,” the editorial said.
“We wish him well in his mission,” it said. The editorial also praises Salim, saying that he and his family are “completely secular” and reminds the readers that he, too, had slammed Muslim clerics for their opposition to Vande Mataram sometime ago.
