Acclaimed director Santram Verma’s terrorizing and abusive attitude is not new at all!! The man has always been in the headlines, especially during his stint with Balaji Telefilms’ successful show, Jodha Akbar for humiliating artists and unit members (been reported earlier).

Now, the team of Balaji Telefilms’ upcoming show, Naagin has assembled in Bikaner, and the show was supposed to roll from today.

However, nemesis has struck in the form of a bad spat that happened between senior actor Sanjay Nath and Director Santram Verma, wherein it is believed that the director literally held the actor’s throat, and even boxed at his chest, is what we have been informed by our sources.

Well, with this initial information, we at Tellychakkar.com called all links possible to get the right picture.

A source from the location of shoot in Bikaner told us, “Santram’s tantrum throwing session started from yesterday, when the entire cast was asked to gather at the hotel they were staying in for a discussion and shoot. However, Santram did not come to the scene and put the actors to a wait of nearly two hours. The actors were not even allowed to go and get a bite of their evening snack, post which Santram came and started a very irrelevant conversation with the actors that had no connection whatsoever with the show. He simply started to take every actor’s case. And when he came up to Sanjay Nath, the actor chosen to play Arjun Bijlani’s father in the show, Santram was heard saying, ‘Are re re, galat casting hogaya’.. The problem between the actor and director apparently started here. And today, when Sanjay Nath was dressed up in his look, and handed over the script for the day, the AD got into the room and called the actor for lunch. Without wasting a moment, Sanjay joined co-actor Sudha Chandran for lunch, and read his lines as he was eating his food. However, half way through his lunch, the AD came and asked the actor if he had read his lines, to which Sanjay gave a positive reply. And when from the script, Sanjay got to know that the scene to be shot required his character to be doing some physical activity, he decided to eat light in order to give the scene the perfection needed. Post the lunch, Sudha and Sanjay were reading their lines, when the lead Arjun Bijlani came to the scene, soon followed by Santram Verma.”

And what we hear is that, Santram got in with his temper high, and addressed Sanjay as ‘ch*@tiya’, and said, ‘tumare wajah se shoot delay hua’, to which the senior actor objected to his tone and language and asked his to mind his tongue, and told him that he was not called yet for the shoot. The director we hear, continued to use foul language at the actor, and in a split second, held the actor by his neck, and also landed a punch at his chest. The actor was shocked with whatever happened, and could not even react to the humiliation he received from the director.

We hear that post this incident, Sanjay Nath has lodged a complaint with the CINTAA (Cine & TV Artistes Association) and has demanded action against the director for his unruly behaviour.

When contacted, Sanjay Nath who has been part of Balaji’s Bandini before, confirmed the incident and said, “Yes, this is not the first time that Santram has been harassing actors for no reason at all. I have earlier worked with him for a brief span of time, for Bandini. But never in my vast career have I been humiliated by someone to this extent. He abused me verbally, and held my neck and hit on my chest too. I was startled at his behaviour. I really thank my stars that there was some kind of divine intervention that stopped me from hitting him back. Yes, any person would have hit back, and there could easily have been a blood war out there, but I did not abuse him or hit back. But I told him that he had it, and I am going to take his case very badly. I have sent a complaint to CINTAA, and also wanted to lodge a police complaint against him. However, the officials at CINTAA asked me not to do that, as it will only mean that I will be asked to do the running around every time the case is called. I come from a family with army background, and I am highly disciplined and grounded. It has been 30 years since I started my theatre work, but I have never come across such a ruthless person. I will want to fight it out to protect the honour of many such actors, and technicians who get harassed by the man day in and day out.”

We hear that post this incident, the production team wanted to start shoot and requested and pleaded with Sanjay Nath to take to the shoot place. However, the actor was so down in esteem that he refused to shoot. 

Confirming this, Sanjay told us, “Yes, who will be able to come to terms after facing such a humiliation? The team members have been begging me to start shoot. But I have not, as I have a slight discomfort too in my chest. I am yet to get out of the shock. I am saddened that the producer is at a loss because of all this. She has always given me bread and butter, and I am grateful to her for calling me again to be part of her show.”

We then buzzed Director Santram who vociferously refused to have hit or abused the actor, and said, “He’s a thorough unprofessional. He made the entire team wait for shoot. And even now, he has not turned up for shoot. I never hit him or abused him; this is all wrong information.”

We also buzzed the Chairperson, Dispute Settlement Committee, CINTAA, Amit Behl who acknowledged the fact that Sanjay had lodged a complaint with CINTAA and said, “Yes, we have had a talk with Balaji Telefilms and also with the direction team. We are yet to get a clear picture from the direction team, but believe that the director is on the wrong side. We will back our actor, and try to solve the matter at the earliest. Sanjay wanted to lodge a police complaint too, but we have asked him not to do that.”

Sudha Chandran who was present when the spat happened replied “no comments”.

We buzzed the channel spokesperson for a comment on this, but did not get any reply. We also dropped a text message to Ekta Kapoor but did not get any revert till the time of filing the story.

We truly hope justice prevails here…