Abrar ul Haq, popular Pakistani singer, has spoken about how he once turned down a big offer from India. He was a guest on the latest episode of the Hafiz Ahmed Podcast. Abrar ul was asked about getting offers from Bollywood; he then revealed why he turned down a film with actor Katrina Kaif. Also read | Pakistanis are furious as Abrar ul Haq claims Karan Johar ‘copied’ his song in JugJugg Jeeyo: ‘Khud ke gaane laao’

Friends were not happy Abrar said no to Katrina’s film

He said in Urdu, “Yes, I received movie offers [from India]. I also received an offer for an album. But I didn’t understand their contract… ‘You can’t speak, you can’t talk about Kashmir, etc.’ I thought that a country that believes in the freedom of expression shouldn’t say such things. So I didn’t do them.”

Without mentioning the name of the film or when it was offered to him, Abrar ul added, “There’s a company called Eros; they offered a movie. The actress was Katrina Kaif. My friends were after me, saying, ‘If you don’t want to do it, at least let us go!’ But I didn’t want to do movies [In India]… they called me excitedly and even said, ‘No one has ever refused us, but you have. No one has ever told us they don’t want to do our films. We thought you’d come running.'”

More about Abrar ul Haq

The Pakistani singer was in the news in 2022, when he said he was taking legal legal action against Karan Johar and T-Series for ‘stealing’ his song for the movie JugJugg Jeeyo. The Varun Dhawan and Kiara Advani-starrer featured a revamped version of the song, The Punjaabban.

The Punjaabban first appeared briefly in the JugJugg Jeeyo trailer, and prompted Abrar ul to tweet that he has not sold his song to anyone and will approach courts against the film’s makers. In response, T-Series said it had ‘legally acquired’ the rights to the song and it is also available on Lollywood Classics’ YouTube channel.