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By Bollywood Hungama -

December 25, 2002 - 12:00 AM IST

Fans broke into frenzy and Shaad Ali's Kanpur schedule for Bunty Aur Babli turned ugly.

The director is currently facing a PIL on the grounds of 'causing inconvenience to local people'. Further, the priests have threatened to take Shaad to court regarding certain sensitive scenes on purohits. A train that he had booked for a fat fee of Rs. 21,000 was revoked at the last moment and was delayed. An NGO has slapped a PIL on the director for causing commuting disregard.

As if this was bad enough, Abhishek Bachchan was almost thugged. A fake roof constructed for the shoot came collapsing injuring a few. An irate crowd began stoning the cast and crew, one of which air missed Rani. The area was totally cordoned off with huge police lathicharge. When the Sathiyaa maker felt the situation slipping out of his hands, he even drove the media out of the shooting vicinity.

This entire fracas wriggled out when Shiiv Sainiks demanded that Rani Mukherji not enter the Shri Swaminath Akhara. Since the akhara doesn't traditionally permit female entry, the Sainiks insisted that the makers not use the scene and issued threats of burning down theatres if the order was not obeyed. The purohit clan have also raised objection against yet another scene, which depicts Abhishek-Rani as sadhu-cheli con people out of money.

This Yash Raj film starring Abhishek Bachchan-Rani Mukherji started on a warm reception from Kanpur that had crazy fans piling at odd hours like 4 in the morning in order to catch a glimpse of their cinestars, but things suddenly took a sour turn. The cast has currently packed away to Dehradhun for another shooting spell.

Hope things chill in the cool climate of Dhehra Dun