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06 October 2024

Video Exclusive: Shah Rukh Khan covers Forbes in style

Published

A row has broken out between India and Pakistan after Islamabad's suggestion that Delhi provide security to Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

Indian Home Secretary RK Singh said India was "quite capable" of taking care of the security of its people.

On Monday, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik requested India to provide security to the actor.

This came after Khan wrote a first-person account of how it felt to be a Muslim in India.

"I sometimes become the inadvertent object of political leaders who choose to make me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India," the actor wrote in Outlook Turning Points, published by India's Outlook magazine in association with the New York Times.

"There have been occasions when I have been accused of bearing allegiance to our neighbouring nation than my own country - this even though I am an Indian whose father fought for the freedom of India.

"Rallies have been held where leaders have exhorted me to leave my home and return to what they refer to as my original homeland," he wrote.

Khan is one of Bollywood's biggest stars with a massive fan following in India and abroad. He has appeared in more than 70 films, anchored television shows and done innumerable advertisements.

He also owns the Kolkata Knight Riders team of the lucrative Indian Premier League cricket tournament.

Khan has family roots in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and has a huge fan following there too.

According to Forbes India magazine's inaugural celebrity 100 list, Shah Rukh Khan is India's highest paid celebrity.

The rankings, published in this fortnight's issue, listed India's biggest entertainers based on their income and popularity.

With estimated earnings of 2 billion rupees between October 2011 and September 2012, the 47-year-old "Jab Tak Hai Jaan" star out-earned actor Salman Khan and cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Salman Khan, who starred in "Dabangg 2" and "Ek Tha Tiger" last year, took second place with 1.4 billion rupees in earnings. Dhoni, actors Akshay Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan were also in the top five.

The Forbes India list was compiled on the basis of visibility in print, media and online as well as gross pre-tax earnings. The Top 100 list mostly features Bollywood stars, but cricketers, sports stars and authors also made the cut.