BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha defends Salman Khan on Yakub Memon issue

On a day when Salman Khan faced a barrage of opposition over his controversial defence of death row convict Yakub Memon, actor-politician and Lok Sabha MP Shatrughan Sinha rooted for him, saying, "supporting anybody's mercy petition is not a bad thing."

"I know Salman Khan for a long time. He is a good man. He has not said anything wrong about Yakub Memon, who has already filed a mercy petition. I think there is no harm in supporting anybody's mercy petition," Sinha, MP from Patna Saheb constituency, said.

Sinha, a senior BJP leader, was all praise for Khan and his recently released movie 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan'.

"It is a wonderful movie. I have seen it and it should be watched by everyone. It spreads a message of humanity and brotherhood. It should be made tax free," Sinha said.

49-year-old Khan had earlier, in a series of tweets, come out in the defence of Memon, the only death row convict in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, saying a wrong man was being hanged for crimes committed by his brother Tiger Memon.

"Get tiger hang him. Parade him, not his brother. One innocent man being killed is killing humanity," Khan had tweeted. Tiger is one of the prime suspects in the serial blasts case and Khan went to the extent of asking Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to hand him over to India if he was hiding in his country.
PTI