MUMBAI: Pakistani actress Meera, who makes her Bollywood debut this week, has urged the Pakistan government to lift a 40-year ban on Indian films to give a boost to warming ties between the two countries. Meera said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday she could work in Bollywood only because of the improved diplomatic relations between Islamabad and New Delhi.

“Film is the best media to improve relations between India and Pakistan. I only hope and pray current efforts to get the ban lifted succeeds,” Meera said in the interview. But she faces a daunting task after her family in Pakistan received death threats over media reports she had done a kissing scene in Indian film ‘Nazar’, produced by Mahesh Bhatt.

“Bhatt was the first person to take steps to improve cooperation between India and Pakistan in films. Hopefully he will be the first to release a movie there,” she said. Meera said all ‘negative impressions’ about the movie, in which she plays a blind woman who acquires a bizarre ability to foresee murders in a red light area after an eye transplant, would be cleared when people get to see the film.

“It’s a good film and will do well,” she said. “I can’t wait to know how people will receive it.” Meera, who says she was never made to feel she came from ‘an enemy country’, plans to act in more Indian movies and has signed up for another film with Mahesh Bhatt.

“People showered me with loads of flowers and garlands wherever I went to promote the film. This only shows how much people here love me.” “I’m half Indian now, but I have no intention to settle down here,” she said.—Reuters