Anupam Kher welcomes Raja’s arrest
By IANSWednesday, February 2, 2011
KOLKATA - Renowned actor Anupam Kher Wednesday welcomed the arrest of former telecom minister A. Raja and said the current attitude of people to accept corruption with a “smiling face” is not good for the society.
“It’s a good step that finally Raja has been arrested. It is a good beginning, I welcome this step. In our country, there are allegations against many politicians and those cases go on for several years,” Kher told reporters at the sidelines of a book launch here.
“But it should not be like he comes out after six months and this step becomes symbolic in order to calm down the anger of the common people,” Kher said.
Raja was arrested Wednesday for his suspected role in the allocation of airwaves for second generation (2G) phone services, billed as the country’s biggest corruption scandal to date.
“I am optimist and hope this arrest will bring certain amount of halt to corruption charges against people, individual and government. I am a politically conscious person and never ever in my entire life I have seen or heard of so many scams in the country,” Kher said.
The Central Bureau of Investigation held Raja, a senior leader of the DMK, a component of United Progressive Alliance government, and two of his aides on primarily two counts — misuse of office in allocation of spectrum, a finite national resource, and amassing wealth much higher than the known and legal sources of their income.
Renowned lyricist and screenwriter Prasoon Joshi denied to comment on Rajas arrest but felt that care-free attitude towards corruption was dangerous for the society.
I do not want to be judgmental about it. But I would like to say one thing that the issue of corruption has become a very easy-going issue among the common people. People crack jokes about it. We do not feel angry about the issue of corruption, we do not feel concerned about it, Joshi, who was also present at the function, said.
This is not good for a country which has such a large young population. What will they learn? We should be more firm on the issue of corruption, Joshi added.
