April 09, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 2, 1429

MUMBAI, April 8: Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan vowed not to be intimidated into leaving Mumbai, his home for four decades, after being targeted during anti-migrant protests in the western India city, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Vandals threw glass bottles at Bachchan’s home two months ago after an ultra-nationalist politician criticised the actor for funding a college in northern Uttar Pradesh, where he comes from, instead of Mumbai, where he lives and works.

Bachchan was targeted as part of an ongoing campaign by Mumbai politician Raj Thackeray, leader of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena or Maharashtra Reconstruction Party.

Thackeray has been agitating against what he perceives are outsiders taking jobs from natives of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital.

Thackeray’s comments sparked clashes on Mumbai’s streets between supporters of his party and the Socialist Party, which Bachchan’s wife Jaya represents in India’s parliament.

“I am not leaving this city and going anywhere. Let them chuck a thousand bottles,” Bachchan told the Mumbai Mirror newspaper. “I am not budging.”

The veteran actor said the city brought him fame, and his links stretched back to his marriage and his children’s birth in the city.

Bachchan described Thackeray as “misguided” and said he would continue to undertake work and projects in other states, including Maharashtra.

“I am not an outsider by any stretch of imagination. This is my land as much as it is of every other citizen of our beloved country,” he said. “I did not need a visa to come here. I have made this city my home for the last 40 years.”—AP