Coronation Street cast and crew ‘banned’ from talking about sacked Marc Anwar’s racist tweets
Bosses attempt to damage control in aftermath of scandal
SOAP bosses have been quick to lay down the law following their decision to sack star Marc Anwar after he went on a culturally offensive rant on social media and ordered cast and crew not to discuss it.
The 45-year-old Pakistan-born actor – who first appeared on the cobbles as businessman Sharif Nazir in 2014 – described Indians as “b******s” and “p**s-drinking c***s” in a series of bigoted Twitter posts.
And it seems that Corrie is taking no chances when it comes to a further fallout by “gagging” everyone involved in the ITV show.
"The whole crew have been gagged and put on lock down after the racist tweets scandal,” a source told The Mirror.
ITV said in a statement: “We are deeply shocked by the entirely unacceptable, racially offensive comments made on Twitter by Marc Anwar.
“We have talked to Marc and, as a consequence of his comments, he will not be returning to Coronation Street with immediate effect.”
His remarks came days after 17 soldiers were killed at an army base in Kashmir and sparked a UN clash between India and Pakistan.
He tweeted: “Why the F***k do #pakistaniartists want work in #f*** face #india, do you love money so much.”
Next tweeting an image of a clenched fist, he added: “Ban #india movies in #PakistanisLeaveIndia. B*****ds p**s drinking #c**ts.
“F***ing #indians killing our #Kashmir brothers and sisters, beygairth #NawazSharif still sucking #modi Lul!”
A further entry saw him call on Pakistanis to leave India.
The actor has since deleted his Twitter account
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Fiyaz Mughal, director of the charity Faith Matters, condemned Marc saying his actions had “added fuel to the fire”.
He explained: “It’s unacceptable for anyone today to put material online that targets a segment of a population. You can’t just blame a whole group of people for a conflict.
“Marc needs to reflect, and in a way retract what he said, and understand you can’t go online and add fuel to the fire.
“I can empathise with the anger and feel nothing is moving, but the best way to relieve that anger is to work with your political leaders.”
Fiyaz concluded: “If you’re on Coronation Street, you’re in a powerful position, you have huge influence on social media. If the reverse happened and it was said Pakistanis are bad, he wouldn’t like it. It’s ludicrous and those comments don’t work one way or the other.”
Last night a Corrie spokeswoman said: “We are shocked by the entirely unacceptable racially offensive comments made on Twitter by Marc Anwar.
“As a consequence of his comments, he will not be returning to Coronation Street with immediate effect.”
Just two months ago, Anwar was pictured with police in a campaign to tackle hate crime.