Mumbai: Bollywood superstar Salman Khan on Sunday triggered a political storm by describing Yakub Memon — the Mumbai blasts convict scheduled to be hanged on July 30 — as innocent but was forced to withdraw his tweets and tender an unconditional apology following outrage from political parties and social media.
According to news agency reports from Mumbai, the 49-year-old actor posted about a dozen tweets from about 2 am on Sunday in which he said the wrong man is being hanged for the crimes of his brother Tiger Memon, who was described by the actor as a “lomdi (fox)” who ran away. But Salman later claimed he had not termed Yakub as innocent.
“Get tiger (Tiger Memon), hang him. Parade him not his brother,” the actor had tweeted. Tiger Memon, who is believed to be in Pakistan, is one of the prime suspects in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts that killed 257 people and injured 1,400. Khan said he had been wanting to tweet about the issue for some days, but was afraid.
“Been wanting to tweet Tis fr 3 days n was afraid to do so but it involves a man’s n family. Don’t hang brother hang tha lomdi (fox) who ran away,” he tweeted. “1 innocent man killed is killing the humanity,” the actor said. Deleting his earlier tweets, Salman Khan said that his father Salim Khan called him and said he should retract his tweets as they had the potential to create “misunderstanding”.
