Actor’s Nashik trip: Minister clarifies that no rules flouted
MUMBAI: Actor Akshay Kumar’s Nashik trip by helicopter created a stir as the district’s guardian minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, said on Saturday morning he received complaints of violation of lockdown rules and he asked the local administration to probe them.
Later in the evening, however, Bhujbal said the actor had come to visit a doctor and there was no flouting of rules when providing him police protection. The minister said after the preliminary information he received, he does not find any reason to probe the issue further.
When HT contacted the actor, his team said, “Akshay had travelled there for health reasons to meet Dr Ashraf, and he had all the required permissions.”
Bhujbal, while speaking to the media after the inauguration of a Covid-19 facility in Nashik on Saturday morning, had said he had received complaints about the actor’s trip. He said he was surprised that when the chief minister and ministers travel by road, how the actor received VIP treatment and how he could fly in a helicopter amid the lockdown. He said that he would seek information from officials and check if there was any flouting of rules and how was the actor provided police escort by the city police when he was travelling to the rural area of the district.
Bhujbal, however, in the evening told HT, “I had said in the morning that I would check into the incident and how he got permission to fly and stay. Later, the district collector informed me that the actor had paid a visit to one Dr Ashraf in Trimbakeshwar.
The Nashik police commissioner had called on him there and the escort, about which complaints were received, was for the commissioner. As far as the flying permission is concerned, the flight originated from Mumbai and it needs to be checked into by the authorities there. For us [the Nashik district administration], the chapter is closed now.”
Kumar had visited Trimbakeshwar, a temple town on the outskirts of Nashik, four days ago.
Kumar’s photographs at the helipad went viral and triggered a controversy in Nashik as people from the district raised questions about the permission given to the actor to travel and stay at a resort during the lockdown.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had travelled by road to Pandharpur two days ago for a puja at Vitthal temple on the occasion of Ashadhi Ekadashi.
Other ministers, too, were denied permissions by the administrations, making them travel by road.