Mumbai: Hindi film industry is paying the price of being ‘high profile’, said veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar on Tuesday.
Bollywood has been under scanner ever since Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide. Now there is renewed attention on the film industry and its celebrity culture with the arrest of Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan in connection with a case of alleged seizure of drugs from a cruise ship.
Asked if he feels that Bollywood is being routinely targeted with raids, he told PTI, “This is the price the film industry has to pay for being high profile. When you’re high profile, people have fun pulling you down, throwing muck at you. If you’re a nobody, then who has the time to throw stones at you?”
Javed Akhtar was speaking at the launch of the book “Changemakers”, written by authors Almas Virani and Sweta Samota.
Without taking names, the lyricist said the superstar’s son’s case got more media attention than an alleged “one billion dollar” drug recovery from a port, referring to the seizure of 2,988 kg of heroin at Mundra Port located in Kutch district of Gujarat.
“You find cocaine worth ₹ one billion dollar at a port, somewhere else there were 1,200 people where ganja and a total sum of ₹ 1 lakh 30 thousand is found, according to media reports.”
“Now this has become a big national news but I haven’t seen any headline on the billion dollar cocaine…,” he added.
On being asked if he feels Shah Rukh Khan and Aryan Khan are being targeted, Akhtar refused to elaborate.
