ure. Anyone implying the opposite has either not seen my interview or is deliberately trying to distort what I have said

New Delhi: After his intolerance remarks created a furore, actor Aamir Khan on Wednesday issued a statement clarifying that neither he nor his wife have any intention of leaving India.50-year-old Aamir, who drew flak from BJP and a section of film fraternity for expressing his "alarm and despondency" over the rise in recent incidents of intolerance, came out with a statement, saying he is "proud to be an Indian".“First let me state categorically that neither I, nor my wife Kiran, have any intention of leaving the country. We never did, and nor would we like to in the fut,” Aamir’s statement to the press read.“India is my country, I love it, I feel fortunate for being born here, and this is where I am staying,” the actor said.The actor had kicked up a political storm with his remarks at a function in Delhi on Monday about his wife expressing fear for their child in the current atmosphere.He had said, "Kiran and I have lived all our life in India. For the first time, she said, should we move out of India... She fears for her child, she fears about what the atmosphere around us will be."Aamir, however, said he stands by earlier statements and showed no signs of bowing down to severe criticism.To all those people who are calling me anti-national, I would like to say that I am proud to be Indian, and I do not need anyone's permission nor endorsement for that.To all the people shouting obscenities at me for speaking my heart out, it saddens me to say you are only proving my point,” he further said.Aamir thanked all those people whoever has stood by him during this hour.“We have to protect what this beautiful and unique country of ours really stands for. We have to protect its integrity, diversity, inclusiveness, its many languages, its culture, its history, its tolerance, it's concept of 'ekantavada', it's love, sensitivity and its emotional strength.,” his statement added.Aamir's statement also included a poem from Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore that's mentioned below:"I would like to end my statement with a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, it's a prayer really"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,Where knowledge is free,Where the world has not been broken up into fragments,by narrow domestic walls,Where words come out from the depth of truth,Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection,Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way,Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit,Where the mind is led forward by thee,Into ever-widening thought and action,Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.Jai Hind.