Five days after Mumbai Mirror first broke the story of veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah’s cancelled poetry recital – and prompted a wave of public debate and online outrage – the co-organizers of Urdu Jalsa 2026, Bazm-E-Ahbab Foundation, has finally spoken up with a version starkly at odds with the university’s account.

Billed as a cultural and literary highlight, Shah’s session titled ‘Preet Nagar’, scheduled on February 1 at Mumbai University’s Kalina campus, was scrapped hours before showtime, leaving audiences confused and prompting speculation.

But Tausif Shaikh, co-founder of the Bazm-E-Ahbab Foundation and co-organizer of the festival, told Mumbai Mirror the cancellation was not Shah’s decision; it was the organizers' call, driven by what he described as “security concerns”.

“Yes, we had invited Naseer sahab and everything was planned in detail,” Shaikh said. “When we checked bookings on the evening of January 31, they had crossed 1,200, three times the seating capacity of the venue. We feared overcrowding and security concern. That’s why we had to cancel only this one session.”

Shaikh denied that the cancellation was because of anticipated controversy over Shah’s participation. “We thought safety came first,” he said.

He insisted the Urdu Department knew about the invitation. “This was a co-organized festival. Details were shared and approved. How can the department not know?” he asked.

The department has denied any role and even said it did not invite Shah.

Dr Abdullah Imtiyaz, the head of department, had told Mirror, “We did not invite him. The university or the Urdu Department has no role in this. Has anybody seen an invitation letter from us?”

When contacted, Shah provided a trail of emails and promotional materials showing months of coordination with Bazm-E-Ahbab founder Ghazal Sheikh, including formal invitations, discussions on dates, booking logistics, and even poster designs prepared for hoardings and online bookings. The thread, beginning November 23, 2025, and running through January 24, 2026, confirms Shah’s participation and details for Preet Nagar, a session named after a village on the Indo-Pak border that once inspired icons like Sahir Ludhianvi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Amrita Pritam and Shiv Kumar Batalvi.

Initially constrained by travel commitments, Shah had agreed, at the organizers' insistence, to recite Faiz’s Dua, Ludhianvi’s Mere Geet and a short story by Imtiaz Ali Taj. The session was slated to be anchored by journalist-filmmaker Imtiyaz Khaleel.

Despite these specifics, the university continues to maintain it had “no knowledge” of any such invitation. While the rest of the Urdu Jalsa 2026 festival went ahead on February 1-2, it is the cancelled Shah session that has dominated public attention.

“If the event was pulled for crowd safety, as claimed, why do official accounts diverge so sharply? And if the university was not involved in the planning of Shah’s poetry recital, how did months of planning, email exchanges, posters and bookings come about? Were they not aware of it all,” asked a Urdu research scholar, who was one of those who bought tickets for Shah’s session.

Speaking about the controversy around the event, Shah said : “The event wasn’t cancelled, only I was!”