Mumbai: Veteran actor Shabana Azmi and her husband and poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar have decided not to attend her father and poet Kaifi Azmi’s birth centenary celebrations in Karachi following the dastardly Pulwama terror attack.

The couple said that they had been invited to Pakistan by the Karachi Arts Council for a two-day event. “@Javedakhtarjad-u and I were invited for a two-day event celebrating Kaifi’s centenary and we-re truly looking forward to it. I appreciate that our hosts, the Karachi Arts Council, mutually agreed to cancel the event at the Nth hour in the wake of the Pulwama attack,” she tweeted.

Shabana condemned the attacks and said that she stood united with the grieving families. “Will there be no letup in these heinous attacks? These mindless killings. This utter disregard for human lives? Extremely shocking news coming from Pulwama. I strongly condemn the worst terror attack on the CRPF convoy,” she wrote.

Javed, too, took to Twitter to pay his condolences to the families of the martyrs. “I have a special relation with the CRPF.... I have written their anthem. Today, I share the grief of the dear ones of the martyrs,” he wrote.