Snake row: Forest department summons Nagarjuna director

Mumbai: After the Thane forest department placed actors Shruti Ulfat and Pearl Puri of the TV show Nagarjuna in its custody for a day, it has now summoned director/ producer Yash Patnaik to its office to record his statement. The case so far only involved the show’s set managers and two of its lead actors, but officials are attempting to zero in on the owner of the snake.

Range forest officer Santosh Kank said, “The actors have revealed that they know of the person who is said to be the snake’s owner but claimed they don’t know about his whereabouts. We want to find out who actually had got in touch with the snake owner and hence in order to get a clear picture, we have called the director of the series. ”

The Mumbai territorial range of Thane forest department on January 17 had lodged an FIR against the actors and two production managers after the forensic reports stated that the series made use of a real snake and not a fake one created by special effects as claimed earlier. The forest officials then investigated the matter and sent a screenshot of the Instagram post to the Kalina Forensic laboratory to identify whether the snake picture used in the post was of a real snake. The two actors were produced in a Borivali court. They are, however, currently out on bail.