Indian film stars cancel show in Pakistan over visa row

More than 20 Indian film stars were to take part in the television show and a screening of a Bollywood classic in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Saturday to raise funds for last year's massive earthquake in the region.

But the Indian team "indefinitely postponed" the show after Akhtar, also an Urdu poet and script writer, was denied permission to travel to Pakistan.

"They had issued all the members visas on the 20th. Two days later, they informed us that they were cancelling the visa for Javed Akhtar," Akhtar told AFP by phone from western Mumbai city where the country's Hindi-language film industry is based.

The Pakistan High Commission said Akhtar's visa had been cleared late Friday, but the songwriter said "it was too late".

"The Pakistan High Commission is hiding behind the excuse of bureaucratic delay, but the fact is the visa was first issued, and then cancelled."

"I found the entire thing in very poor taste," he said.

The writer, who often speaks out on public issues, hinted that the show may not be held at all, rather than just postponed till a later date.

"To say it's indefinitely postponed is a polite way of saying we are not doing the show.

"It was for a good cause. We thought it will create friendship and goodwill."

The earthquake in October claimed more than 73,000 lives and left 3.3 million homeless in northern Pakistan. More than 1,000 also died in Indian Kashmir.

India's Hindi films have been banned in Pakistan for 40 years, but warming ties between the two arch rivals have resulted in a partial lifting of the ban.