BENGALURU: Blaming the makers of ‘Masti Gudi’ for the death of two actors at the Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) reservoir on Monday afternoon, the BWSSB has said they have violated conditions laid down in the permission letter. The Board issued a notice to the film producer, KPS Combines, late in the evening on Monday for the alleged violations.
TG Halli reservoir is located 35km from the city on Magadi Road.
Speaking to Express, Jagadish, Chief Administrative Officer, BWSSB, who issued the consent letter on November 4 to KPS Combines, said, “The letter was issued to them permitting them to carry out the shoot today (November 7) subject to 12 conditions. Unfortunately, they have violated them and this has led to the tragedy.”
The chief violation was the aerial shoot above the water body. The letter lists this as the first condition. “The group was not allowed to shoot in certain restricted areas but they went ahead and carried out the shoot,” he said.
The Board issued a notice to them on Monday evening. “As a first step, we have asked the producer to give a clarification on how they went about shooting in the area,” he said.
Jagadish also said that quite a few movies have been shot at the reservoir but it is the first time such an accident has taken place.
BWSSB Engineer-in-Chief Kemparamaiah said, “It is not BWSSB’s fault. They have violated our conditions.”
The letter, made public on Monday, states that the BWSSB is not responsible for any untoward incident that takes place in the course of the shoot. When asked if it was not BWSSB’s responsibility to ensure the conditions were not violated, an official said, “Our staff were at the site till afternoon. They left as they had other work to attend to. It was only after that the movie crew did the aerial shooting.”
Another official said it was the responsibility of the movie makers to adhere to the conditions in the interests of their own safety.
“The crew shot 100 feet above water without any safety gear. A falling object will have an acceleration of 9.81 m/sec2. A dynamic object (falling person) colliding with a static object (water surface) will have a severe impact on the dynamic object,” said a top official. “How can they think of doing such an aerial sequence without any safety gear in place,” he asked.
They have violated basic safety procedures, he said.