Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 11, 2014)

Sidharth Malhotra has been doing a lot of action sequences for Ekta Kapoor’s The Villain, which also stars Riteish Deshmukh and Shraddha Kapoor. During one such sequence yesterday, a part of the crane came crashing down and cinematographer Vishnu Rao ended up injuring his right arm when he failed to move out from harm’s way.

 Rao was setting up a scene featuring Sidharth and Riteish and the actors were waiting in their respective vanity vans. Five minutes before the actors were to be called in for the shot, the top half of a crane, which was not operational, started to swing menacingly.

An eyewitness told Mirror, “There were many crew members on the sets and they spotted the violently oscillating crane. People started to run for cover and there was a pandemonium. Unfortunately, a part of the equipment fell on Rao’s hand, almost crushing it. He was immediately rushed to a hospital.”

When contacted, Balaji’s CEO Tanuj Garg said: “What happened is unfortunate. Yes, our DOP (Director of Photography) Vishnu was injured. Thankfully, there was not more damage.”

The Villain is expected to hit the theatres on June 27, 2014.