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EVP Studios was banned for shoots after earlier accidents: FEFSI member
On Wednesday night, a major accident occurred on the sets of Indian 2 by director Shankar that was being shot at EVP Studios, Nazarathpet, when a crane being operated to move the sets, toppled over and fell. Three people, identified as Krishna, Chandran, and Madhu, were killed.
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migrator
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Chennai
This is not the first time that an accident has taken place on the same venue. Prior to this, a technician and an electrician lost their lives on the sets of Kaala and Bigg Boss 2 respectively.
Talking to DT Next, the erstwhile head of FEFSI, Siva revealed, “Chandran, the production assistant is one of the founding members of FEFSI. Today we have lost him due to negligence. EVP Studios was banned by FEFSI and quite a few films were not given permission to shoot in EVP last year. However, the venue reopened after the owners requested us to permit shoots despite accidents that took place. If adequate safety checks were done by FEFSI, we wouldn’t have lost three lives,” he said.
Swaminathan, the incumbent treasurer of FEFSI, also admitted that they had banned film shoots in the Nazarathpet studio. “We did not give permission for film shoots in EVP after a light fell off a 150-feet crane on the sets of Bigil injuring a technician,” he said. However, he added that safety checks had been conducted by FEFSI before allowing movie units to shoot in the venue again.
Siva said that this incident calls for the government to include FEFSI members under the State’s Labour Department. “We have put forth this request several times since Jayalalithaa was CM. Currently, we have members who work for over 12 hours a day. Under the labour law, they should not have to work for more than eight hours a day, because fatigue can cause distractions at the workplace,” he said.
Meanwhile a lawyer named C Rajashekaran, representing the Voice of Tamil Nadu approached the Chennai police claiming that mishaps were a regular occurence in the particular studio. He claimed that there were accidents when the management was running a theme park there. Even after they made it into a studio, the accidents continued. The advocate further said that the accident should not be probed by the local police and should be investigated by the city central crime branch.
Was crane operator qualified for the job?
Two days after the accident, police on Friday arrested crane operator Rajan. During inquiry, he told the cops that he was just following instructions from the production team, when the mishap happened. “We have to find out who instructed the crane operator and how they erred in estimating the weight a crane can handle,” a senior officer noted. Shankar might also be summoned for inquiry. Nazarethpet police registered cases under Sections 337, 338 and 304A and also against the production house. Later in the day, the case was transferred to Central Crime Branch of city police. A witness to the mishap told DT Next that the crane was exported from overseas to shoot for high budget Tamil films. “The crane was overloaded and the hook had a self-closing safety latch to prevent the load from slipping out of the hook. The operator unhooked the latch instead of turning the crane that resulted in this unfortunate incident. We don’t have experienced people here to operate such cranes,” the witness said.
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