Actor Dipika Kakar of Sasural Simar Ka fame created quite a stir when she converted to Islam to marry her co-star and long time beau, Shoaib Ibrahim in February this year. After four months of being married, the couple recently celebrated their first Eid together and posted pictures on social media too. That led to haters slamming, trolling and abusing Dipika and calling her names for being a Hindu and celebrating a Muslim festival.
Giving it back to the trolls, Dipika retorts, “Why do I owe an explanation to you for my personal decision? Why do you expect that I will live my life on your terms and conditions? How are you even related to me? Just because I’m an actor and you get to know about my personal life doesn’t give you the right to abuse me or slam me whenever you feel like. Shame on you.”
Read | Shoaib Ibrahim on wife Dipika Kakar’s TV comeback: I want her to be at ease with her decisions
Stating that she doesn’t believe in paying heed to haters and just blocks them, Dipika adds, “Where were these so called concerned people when I was going through a rough patch in my life? So, how the hell they’ve got a right to ruin my image by giving bad abuses or even abusing Shoaib. I pity them that they have so much spare time to write such long hate messages for us.”
Pehli eid ki pehli mehndi... 😊 #shoaikakieid
A post shared by shoaib Ibrahim (@shoaib2087) on Jun 14, 2018 at 2:57pm PDT
The actor-couple was subjected to similar humiliation on social media around the time of their wedding too, when the invitation card had Dipika’s name as Faiza.
Read | Simar-Prem aka Dipika Kakar and Shoaib Ibrahim are now happily married, for real
Defending Dipika and maintaining that converting to Islam was her personal decision, Shoaib says, “We are a very liberal family and religion has never played havoc in our lives. Dipika is free to follow whatever religion she wants to — Hindu or Muslim. I love the teachings of Buddhism too. Does that mean I can’t follow it? I celebrate Christmas, so does that mean I’m converting to one or I should start following Christ? Come on, we are living in the 21st century, so let’s live and happily co-exist. Why do we need to make religion barriers to a happy and prosperous life?”
Asked if such nasty comments ever affected them and their families emotionally, Shoaib says, “Not at all. We knew this would happen. Our relationship based on caste and a lot many other things was always being speculated, hence we got used to it much early. I really feel bad for people who thought these stories and speculations would affect us badly, we proved them wrong.”
Interact with Monika Rawal Kukreja at Twitter/@monikarawal