‘Crowd jostles’ to catch glimpse of actors, Rajkot mall manager booked for ‘event without police nod’

Members of the film’s cast and crew earlier announced the event on social media and around 6 pm on Tuesday, reached the mall where around 1,500 people had gathered to catch a glimpse of the actors.

The programme went on for around half an hour and videos of people purportedly jostling to go near the actors and click selfies with them soon surfaced on social media, along with videos of the large crowd assembled on the premises.

Police said the mall manager, Sameer Ramji Visani, was booked under BNS section 223 for violation of a notification lawfully promulgated by a public servant.

The FIR was registered at Gandhigram-2 (University) police station on the basis of a complaint by sub-inspector N V Chavda on behalf of the state. A notice was issued to Visani and further investigation is underway, police said. The maximum punishment for this section is one-year imprisonment and fine of up to Rs 5,000.

DCP (Zone-2) Rakesh Desai told The Indian Express on Wednesday that the “police were neither informed nor was permission sought before the event was arranged and publicised.”

Desai said, “People had gathered both inside and outside the mall, which is a violation of a police notification. There is a capacity of the mall and if there are three to four times the number of people packed in that space, it is unacceptable.”

“Fortunately, there was no adverse event and so the police didn’t get a call but the police took cognizance based on videos on social media,” he added.

On December 5 last year, a 35-year-old woman died in a stampede during a screening of the film Pushpa 2 in Hyderabad, Telangana, at which the lead actor, Allu Arjun, was present. Her 13-year-old son was injured and hospitalised.

The mall manager (Visani) told The Indian Express later on Wednesday, “We organise such promotional events at the mall and there has not been any adverse incident till date. Initially, Tuesday’s event was to take place at a cinema hall inside the mall but we thought the ground floor was a better option. The aim was for the movie cast to show gratitude to the people for the film’s success at the box office.”

Visani added, “The film crew had bouncers, we had mall security guards and the cinema hall also had security guards at the time of the event. The film’s cast members came to the stage and left after around 15 minutes. We arranged for their entry from the front and exit from the rear portion of the mall. Later, I got a call from the police. I believe we must respect and follow the law and police and we will rectify the mistake.”

The Indian Express tried to reach out to the film’s director, Ankit Sakhiya, on Wednesday, but he was unavailable for comment. The cast members may be called in to give statements if required, police said.