By Hindustan Times
The shooting of Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha's Rowdy Rathore in Karnataka's temple town of Hampi was disrupted after activists said the minimum choice of local dancers had not been used.
The unit members of Rowdy Rathore, directed by Prabhu Deva, needed to beat a hasty retreat after a couple of hours of shooting on Monday afternoon following objections by local activists.
A song sequence, featuring Akshay and Sonakshi, in conjunction with many dancers, was being shot in Hampi, about 400 km from here, where the mercury has shot as much as over 40 degrees.
Despite the gruelling heat, shooting was in brisk progress when some local activists mentioned that the movie's production house, Sanjay Leela Bhansali Films, had not used no less than 30% of local dancers for shooting the song.
Another explanation for stopping filming is that the unit had taken permission to shoot a song sequence from Tuesday to Friday, but had begun Monday itself, said activists.
Venkoba Naik, an area activist and freelance journalist, told IANS from Hampi that all the film unit had no Kannada technicians and all of them, including the dancers, were brought from Mumbai.
It is stipulated that 30% of local artists needed to be used for the song shoot in Karnataka.
Naik said he learnt that the archaeological department, taking care of the famous Virupaksha Temple and nearby historical places, had given permission for song shoot only from Tuesday.
Senior production manager Champakadhama Babu from the Karnataka Film Workers' Federation said the owdy Rathore
production unit has not used the services of an area production manager from the cine workers organisation.
"The Rowdy Rathore production unit has commissioned a neighborhood tourist guide called Vittala to assist them out without taking the services of an area production manager. That is in gross violation of the accepted policy of the All India Cine Workers Organisation," said Babu.
"A local production manager may have helped the production unit secure permissions for the shooting," added Babu.
Rowdy Rathore is the remake of Telugu film Vikramarkudu, directed by S.S.Rajamouli. The unique was a blockbuster, and its Kannada and Tamil versions were hits too.
