Mumbai, Nov 4 : Veteran actor Paresh Rawal, who can be seen in the recently released film 'The Taj Story', has spoken up on his viral tweet from 2017 in which he lashed out at people questioning the origins of Taj Mahal.

The actor spoke with IANS at a 5-star property during the promotional run of the film, and said that he stands by his 8 year-old tweet.

Back in 2017, the actor had bashed opinions that called the UNESCO world heritage site a non-Mughal architecture. He wrote at the time, 'Taj Mahal-Symbol of Love becomes the symbol of Hate !!! Stupid n unnecessary n sad n pathetic controversy'.

Interestingly, 8 years down the line, the actor worked in 'The Taj Story', which is a revisionist attempt (lacking peer-review) to 'uncover' the truth of the monument.

The actor said that his tweet was a response to the media reportage of claims that said that Taj Mahal is a Hindu monument.

He told IANS, 'My tweet was a reaction to the reports of the newspapers of that time and so on, and everything that was thrown. I am against any kind of hollow controversy, which is a meaningless controversy, which does not benefit anyone, it only spreads poison. I am talking about that. This is not the controversy here. There is no Hindu-Muslim controversy in this film'.

'If you ask a question, you become communal, if you answer, you become a propagandist. So here we are talking about history. The education board and the historians have been factored in, and we have asked them why we have been shown and taught lies. So whatever was said then, in 2017, there must have been something like this. That is also me and this is also me', he added.

/IANS