Mumbai: Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s team has issued a statement, dismissing any suggestion that he played a role in the release of eight former Indian Navy officers from Qatar.
This followed a tweet from economist and BJP member Subramanian Swamy, a former Union minister, claiming that the actor had intervened in the negotiations to free the men who were allegedly arrested on espionage charges.
Reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s post on X about his visits to the UAE and Qatar, Swamy wrote that the PM should have taken Shah Rukh along with him as he had “pleaded with the actor to intervene” after the Ministry of External Affairs and the national security adviser “failed to persuade the Sheikhs of Qatar”. “(He) thus got an expensive settlement from the Qatar Sheikhs to free our Naval officers,” Swamy added, without elaborating further.
Unequivocally denying Shah Rukh’s participation in the matter, his team said that “any such assertions of his involvement are unfounded”. The statement further emphasised that “the execution of this successful resolution solely rests with the Indian government officials”.
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Notably, Qatar recently released eight former Indian naval officers previously sentenced to death on alleged charges of spying for Israel. India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) thanked Doha on Monday as it announced that the octet had been freed. Seven of the men have already returned to India.
