New Delhi: Nana Patekar on Thursday apologised for slapping a teenager who approached him for a selfie at a marketplace in Varanasi. The 'Vaccine War' actor clarified that he was shooting for a movie scene and was supposed to be smacking a crew member as part of the shoot when he accidentally hit the boy.
The 72-year-old actor posted a video message on microblogging site X and said the 10-second clip has been 'misinterpreted' by many people. "What actually happened was a misunderstanding during the rehearsal of a shoot from my upcoming film 'Journey'," he wrote. “In the scene, a man was going to ask me if I wanted to sell my hat. And I'm supposed to hit the man on the back of his head and tell him to not misbehave. We had one rehearsal and we were scheduled to have a second rehearsal,” wrote the 72-year-old actor.
“So as per the scene, I hit him and told him that he should not misbehave. But then I realised he was not our guy. By the time I started calling him back, he ran away," the actor said. "If there is some misunderstanding, please forgive me. I never hit anyone and I have never done something like this. People of Kaashi and everyone have given me a lot of love, I would never do something like this. We searched for the boy a lot, because for no fault of his he got hit but we couldn't find him," he said.
Patekar was criticised on social media after the video of him hitting a boy on his head went viral. Director Sharma also defended the actor and said somebody shared a portion of a scene from "Journey" without context.
He (Patekar) has not slapped anyone, it is a shot from our film. People have a problem of making fuss out of nothing... We are currently filming in Benaras for the film, 'Journey'," Sharma told PTI. "Patekar's character has dementia in the film. His mind is disturbed and a guy comes to click a picture with him. There are so many people around us, who are here to watch the shoot. I think someone clicked this particular portion, which is actually one of the scenes from the film," he added.
"I have never refused anyone for a picture. I have clicked thousands of photos with fans. The ghat is always so crowded, and this scene was being shot in the market. 'Ye galti se hogaya, humko malum nahi woh kaha se aaya' (This happened by mistake, I didn't know where he came from).
"If there is some misunderstanding, please forgive me. I never hit anyone and I have never done something like this. People of Kaashi and everyone have given me a lot of love, I would never do something like this. We searched for the boy a lot, because for no fault of his he got hit but we couldn't find him," he said.
(With PTI inputs)
