‘We don’t do it for you’: Dangal actor Zaira Wasim supports woman eating with niqab on

She quote-tweeted a netizen’s post showing an image of a woman eating food without removing her niqab with a caption that said: “Is this a choice of a human being?” Zaira stated: “Just attended a wedding. Ate exactly like this. Purely my choice. Even when everyone around me kept nagging me that I take the niqab off. I didn’t. We don’t do it for you. Deal with it.”

Zaira has also commented on the hijab row previously, mentioning that it was an injustice to ban it and stated she ‘resisted’ the entire system of women being harassed for carrying out a religious commitment, the Dangal actor has now come forward in support of a woman’s choice to wear the niqab.

She said that she wears the hijab with ‘gratitude’ and humility. “I, as a woman who wears the hijab, with gratitude and humility, resent and resist this entire system where women are being stopped and harassed for merely carrying out a religious commitment.”

In 2020, the former actor took to social media to share the plight of residents of Kashmir. In her long post, she mentioned how “Kashmiris continue to exist and suffer”.

It was on June 30, 2019, that Zaira announced her “disassociation” from the field of acting, saying she was not happy with the line of work as it interfered with her faith and religion. In a detailed post on her Facebook page, the Kashmiri-born said she realised “though I may fit here perfectly, I do not belong here”.

Zaira was last seen in Shonali Bose’s The Sky is Pink, which also starred Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Farhan Akhtar. She had also appeared in the lead role in Advait Chandan’s blockbuster hit film Secret Superstar (2017).