Chiranjeevi fans run riot in Bellary

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">BELLARY: It was midnight madness at Bellary. Diehard fans of Chiranjeevi stormed a theatre in the heart of town on Tuesday midnight for a special screening of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Indra</span>, the star’s latest release. <br />En route, they destroyed a park, uprooting saplings and breaking benches.Giving in to mob mania, the district administration allowed the theatre management to screen the film.<br />Indra, a Telugu film starring Chiranjeevi, Bollywood starlet Sonali Bendre and Arati Agarwal, was due for a Wednesday morning release across Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. <br />But the crowd couldn’t wait the night out for the 9.30 am show at Nataraj theatre at the busy Royal Circle. The prints of Indra had arrived and the fans took up their cause as evening set in, pressuring the theatre management to screen the film at midnight. <br />Just in case they were not taken seriously, the hooligans also went on the rampage in the newly renovated Narayana Rao Park. The municipality had just taken pains to redo the park, which is waiting to be inaugurated at the month-end.<br />Chiranjeevi’s fans are desperate for the success of their screen idol, whose films have been bombing continuously at the box office. Their expectations high, some fanatics had poured in from as far as Guntakal, Tadpatri and cities like Kurnool and Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh for the midnight screening. <br />Vandalism is common in Bellary when releases of superstars are due. In fact, Balakrishna, N.T. Rama Rao, Nagarjuna and Chiranjeevi’s films are known to have sparked off events like the sacrifice of animals. Locals are put to great inconvenience but the police are silent spectators. <br />On Wednesday, the police went a step ahead, blocking the busy road to the theatre and diverting vehicles to prevent traffic jams. Despite previous experiences, the department utterly failed to take stringent action and crack down on the fans. <br />Instead, it allowed a special screening. This, despite the Karnataka government’s clear directions to theatre managements, restricting them to only four screenings a day. By 6 am on Wednesday, Indra was into its third show, with many more lined up. </div> </div>