Mumbai, 26 November
Recalling the “dark night spanning three long days”, superstar Amitabh Bachchan on Friday said the 26/11 terror attack had a long life and was embroiled in a “turbulent history weighing down the subcontinent”.
Bachchan wrote in the Indian Express on the 13th anniversary of the 60-hour terror siege of Mumbai, “the interconnectedness of our stories” and “no act of terror should be empowered to destroy our plural solidarity”, in which 166 People were. Killed when 10 terrorists from Pakistan entered the city by sea route.
Bachchan, one of India’s most influential figures, said India acted with “remarkable restraint and restraint” after the strike.
“Despite extreme pressure, it did not succumb to the temptation of military retaliation against Pakistan – even the capture of Mohammad Ajmal Kasab and the revelations of David Headley that led to the establishment of Pakistan’s military-ISI under the control of non-state actors.” , and did not leave a fig leaf in it.”
The 79-year-old star cautioned against allowing himself to be “defined and distorted by fear” and “doubt”.
“The reality is that 26/11 has had a long life, and is steeped in a tumultuous history that still plagues the subcontinent,” he wrote.
It is not yet clear, he said, whether we had let go of all the traps we had set for ourselves.
“Every year we count, now 13 years later, and the dark night spanning three long days is still vivid in our collective memory. This was also the terrorists’ aim, the vibrancy was part of their design,” Bachchan said. said.
In his rare, written newsletter, the actor said the stories we tell can often be bigger than us, “mildly across borders, sometimes riding cricket, sometimes through film”.
“Sometimes they nest in the warmth of the hug, which India captain Virat Kohli gave to Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam, when the men in green beat the men in blue in the first game of the T20 World Cup. Was defeated in Dubai recently.
Sometimes they box in India and in Pakistan, the 2015 Salman Khan-starrer ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, a cross-border story about empathy and compassion, boxed in an Indian man’s struggle to reunite a Pakistani child. Enjoys the resounding office success of his family,” he wrote in the op-ed article.
Invoking the famous Mumbaikar sentiment, where people look up to the sky and sea with hope even when standing in a tight space, Bachchan said that one must believe that “better things are possible, and we can bring them together.” can do”.
Dark for Mumbaikars, Bachchan said that there is nothing to be afraid of, rather, “it is the place where the magic lives and the imagination sets free”.
“No terrorist should be allowed to replace us in darkness, or with our neighbor or ourselves. No act of terror should be given the power to destroy our stories, our plural unity,” he said.
Bachchan also paid tribute to the city and said that Mumbai is built and built by people who come from states like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, Karnataka and Rajasthan and Bihar.
“Just in case we forgot, we saw many of them running back home in fear, during the pandemic. Many of them are returning, coming back, as they always do, to remake their lives. For, and in doing so, to remake Mumbai, our Mumbai.” Every year as they mark this day, they say they discover that the power to survive is intertwined with the power of humanity, “our collective commitment that we will not let terrorists define who we are”. .
“Freedom from fear means that we are more comfortable with our neighbor and also with ourselves. It means that we accept that terrorists try to create spectacle and passion and pervade the currency of terror in our politics.” Tried to create, but we deny that the power is on us,” the actor insisted.
Bachchan said, thirteen years later and after a devastating pandemic that claimed the lives of many loved ones, “as we begin to see the first glimpse”, it is the promise we need to “renew ourselves completely”. is required. PTI