Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar cancel Karachi visit after Pulwama attack

In wake of the attack in Occupied Kashmir's Pulwama district, which resulted in the death of Indian parliamentary troops, veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar and his wife actress Shabana Azmi have decided to cancel their upcoming Pakistan trip for a literary event at the Karachi Arts Council.

Akhtar took to Twitter to share that they will not be visiting anymore: "Karachi Art Council had invited Shabana and me for a two-day literature conference about Kaifi Azmi and his poetry. We have cancelled that," he tweeted.

Azmi also tweeted, calling for a halt on cross-border collaborations. "There is no way we can carry on with cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan even as our martyrs are laying down their lives for us," she wrote.

Condemning the attack, Shabana said that she is "filled with pain and grief" but also said that we must not forget that on both sides of the border are "brothers and sisters divided by circumstances with which they had nothing 2 do".

There were also earlier reports of Azmi coming down with swine flu in which case she would've missed the forum anyway.