Anurag Kashyap breaks silence on brother Abhinav Kashyap’s controversy with Salman Khan, says he was asked to stay silent | Bollywood News

3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Mar 12, 2026 04:03 PM Abhinav Kashyap, the brother of filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and the director of the original Dabangg, recently made headlines after giving a series of interviews criticising Salman Khan and his family. The remarks eventually led to a defamation case being filed against him the actor. Now, Anurag Kashyap has finally broken his silence on his brother’s controversial statements.
Speaking to Mid-day, Anurag revealed that Abhinav had specifically asked him not to speak publicly about him. He said, “I know exactly what is happening, so I am not going to say anything simply because a long time ago he asked me not to talk about him. And being a brother, I love him… I also understand that a lot of things have been said and the defamation case that he lost is there. But publicly, I would not want to speak about him. One, because he is my brother. Secondly, because he has very clearly asked me not to.”
Earlier, in an interview with Bollywood Thikana, Abhinav Kashyap had spoken at length against Salman Khan, calling the actor a “coward”. He also used words like “gadha” and “jihadi” to refer to Arbaaz Khan, claiming that Arbaaz did not know anything. Following these remarks, the Khan brothers filed a defamation case against Abhinav, seeking Rs 9 crore in damages along with a public apology.
After reviewing Abhinav’s statements from the podcast interview, the court observed that they were “prima facie defamatory, derogatory, abusive and insulting in nature.”
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Addressing the argument of freedom of speech, the court clarified that “the right to freedom of speech and expression does not mean that one can use abusive or threatening language against any individual.”
Previously, speaking to SCREEN, Abhinav Kashyap had also claimed that he had a difficult experience while filming Dabangg. He said that Anurag Kashyap had warned him beforehand. Referring to his brother’s experience during the making of Tere Naam, Abhinav said: “The same happened with him in Tere Naam. How would he guide or advise me? He told me before Dabangg that I wouldn’t be able to make a film with Salman. He didn’t explain in great detail why I wouldn’t be able to make a movie with him. He just thought I would get easily bullied. He knows these vultures.”