Bandra residents stall Sanjay Dutt biopic shoot

Last evening (12 April), the shoot of the Sanjay Dutt biopic at Pali Hill in the Bandra area of Mumbai had to be stalled as fans blocked the road, causing inconvenience to local residents who then forced director Rajkumar Hirani to cancel the day’s shoot.

The shoot could've been of the incident when Dutt returned to his Pali Hill residence after serving time in jail in the illegal possession of arms case. It was an early morning shoot as the makers would have wanted to avoid a crowd. However, as the word spread, fans thronged the area, causing a traffic jam and leaving the local residents furious. The residents also accused the crew of littering around.

The impasse ended at around 9am when Dutt himself came out and apologised to the aggrieved residents. Kapoor stayed inside Dutt's house.

“There was a scene where Ranbir was supposed to drive a Ferrari into Sanjay Dutt's house on Pali Hill. The rest of the shooting was supposed to take place inside the house. The shooting started from 6am and continued for three hours. Soon, it was time for people to go out for work or other daily tasks. But they were stuck in traffic congestion as the crew was shooting in the middle of the road," Madhu Poplai, secretary of Pali Hill Residents' Association told The Times Of India newspaper.

The residents took to the street and asked the unit to stop the shoot immediately. Some even parked their cars in the middle of the shooting spots to prevent the crew from going ahead with their work.

Hirani then took stock of the situation, apologising to the residents and requesting for another 10 minutes to complete the shoot. The filmmaker also assured Imperial Heights' residence that his crew would clear the litter. The residents then obliged and let the crew wind up their shoot.

Incidentally, the shoot of another Dutt film was stalled in February. Dutt’s comeback film Bhoomi faced trouble with the crowd stalling the shoot in a village near Agra. Dutt is, however, not part of his biopic directed by Hirani.