Goons vandalise TV show set

Beend Banoonga Ghodi Chadhoonga set destroyed, labourers hospitalised

A month ago, it was becoming somewhat unimaginable to deliver the show’s episodes in time. But now, things are sorted,” says producer S Farhaan whose show

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Beend Banoonga Ghodi Chadhoonga

, goes on air next week on Imagine. The production company shot for a few days in Rajasthan before moving to Naigaon, on the city’s outskirts.

However, it took the art director and his team from the production house more than a month to create the Marwari family’s palatial house because local goons disrupted the construction. “Initially, they would only threaten to break the sets if we didn’t employ the locals as part of the crew. But one day, after a few visits, they turned up in large numbers. And as we hadn’t paid heed to their threats, they just destroyed whatever little we had created,” says Farhaan, who was worried whether he and his team would be able to deliver any episodes to the channel by the due date.

“They beat our workers black and blue. Some of them were brutally injured and we had to admit them to a hospital, although they are back to work now. The rest of them were too scared to go near the sets. I was getting anxious because the show’s on-air date was close,” he recalls. “They didn’t let us work on the location for over three weeks. We had to approach the police and the cine employees organisation to sort out the problem.”

Four weeks later, the producer, the cine employees’ organisation and a local activist group sat down to discuss the situation and find a middle path. “I haven’t employed any locals as such. I didn’t succumb to the pressure. I just ensured that the right hands worked on erecting the set because it has to last us a while. We have to shoot there every day,” says Farhaan. “We have been assured that there won’t be any ruckus created on our sets any more.”

What if the local mafia resurfaces with a different demand? “We’ve made up our mind. We didn’t go to the channel with the problem because eventually, it would have fallen on our shoulders to sort it out,” says Farhaan. “If those antisocial elements appear on my sets again, I will ask for police security.”