BENGALURU: Even before the ‘Masti Gudi’ movie tragedy fades away from the public memory, another junior artiste has been found dead under mysterious circumstances. The incident happened on Monday evening when she was working for a Tamil movie remake. Body of the victim, identified as Padmavathi, was found in an underconstruction building in Avalahalli, Yelahanka.
According to police, Padmavathi (40) was a junior artiste and a resident of Jakkur. The crew was shooting for the untitled film, a remake of Tamil film Vele Illa Pattadhari. The Kannada remake has actor Ravuchandran’s son Manoranjan in the lead role. Nanda Kishore is directing the film.
According to sources, the unit was shooting on location at Rajankunte past Yelahanka. The shoot consisted of 120 members who packed up around 5:30 p.m. Later, a headcount was done in order to arrange for payment of the artists and it was then discovered that Padmavathi was missing. Her body was found in a secluded spot on site which belongs to Prestige group.”
An artiste said, “The shoot was in progress at the apartment site on ground level. However, there was one shot for which a group of these artistes had to go to the first floor. After the shot, they moved to another location and no one noticed that Padmavathi was missing.”
The body was shifted to Yelahanka government hospital for post mortem. An artiste, who is a friend of Padmavathi said, “The last time I saw her was at around 3pm.“
But police sources said that they got the information only at 9pm about the incident. “We tried to contact the movie director, who was not available,” police said.
A family member said, “The crew came to know about the incident around 5pm but informed us very late. They asked us to come to Yelahanka government hospital. When we went there, there were no one. We then went to the incident spot and found that the movie crew had left the place, leaving body behind.”
Initial reports said that the shooting crew had not taken any permission for shooting the film. Rajanakunte police who reached spot were busy in contacting the movie crew.
On November 7 last year, a similar tragedy had struck the crew of ‘Masti Gudi’ movie. During the shoot, actor Duniya Vijay had jumped from a helicoptor into the Thippagonanahalli reservoir along with two actors, Uday and Anil. While Vijay was rescued, the two others had drowned.