On Monday night, the shooting of Anil Sharma’s Veer in Pune was cancelled at the last minute because of the wide spread of swine flu in the city. Last week, the schedule of Karan Johar’s Qurbaan too was postponed because of the rising cases of flu in the city. Says a source, “It was a three-night shoot which required almost the entire star cast consisting of Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Zarine Khan, Jackie Shroff and Puru Rajkumar.
Producer Vijay Galani consulted Salman Khan and decided to call off the shoot as a precautionary measure. Galani confirms, “Yes, we decided to cancel the Pune schedule because of the swine flu. We have been reading about it but we were going ahead with our shoot. We were to leave yesterday afternoon for Pune and shoot for five nights till August 15 at a college campus. We had booked two options — the Pune Engineering College and the Agricultural College campus but yesterday morning we took a call not to go there. My crew had been telling me for the last few days to cancel the shoot. Salman said it’s up to me. So for the safety of my cast, crew, and technicians, I have cancelled the shoot.
Galani is now looking for a similar location in Mumbai, “I will try to manage the Pune schedule in Mumbai. I have to look after the safety and interests of my cast, technicians and crew.” Director Anil Sharma says, “We decided it is better not to go as our was a big unit and it would attract huge crowds. The Pune administration is busy with the swine flu and it would be unfair for them to look after us too. We didn’t want to take an unnecessary risk and have our unit exposed to swine flu. Salman also wanted it to be cancelled as he said this is the right decision.
