'Green' actor Sayaji Shinde escapes bee attack during tree re-plantation drive

Green activist and prominent Marathi and Hindi films actor Sayaji Shinde had a narrow escape from a potentially dangerous bee attack while participating in a tree re-plantation drive on the Pune-Bengaluru Highway.

The incident occurred near Taswade when Shinde, 64, and his team were engaged in re-planting trees that were uprooted for widening the Pune-Bengaluru Highway.

The participants reportedly disturbed one particular tree which had a huge honeycomb nestling there with the angry swarm of bees suddenly flying out in droves.

The Satara-born Shinde was quickly escorted to his vehicle nearly where he lay out till the attacking bees passed by and normalcy returned.

Appearing relieved, Shinde subsequently on Tuesday told the local media and his volunteers that he was "unharmed" in the attack and work of re-plantation resumed.

Shinde is a well-known environmentalist who launched the NGO, Sahyadri Devrai, founded in 2015 for nature conservation, saving and replanting trees to create forests with flora and fauna in the eco-sensitive Western Ghats and surroundings.

Till date, Sahyadri Devrai has successfully planted around 700,000 indigenous trees, it has 29 Devrai's (Sacred Grove) in the state, 2 tree banks, bio-diversity parts, butterfly garden and rock gardens around Maharashtra with thousands of volunteers.

On the professional front, Shinde is a familiar actor in theatre, television and Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Bhojpuri films and is remembered for his roles in Bollywood hits like 'Jodi No. 1', 'Chhal', 'Mujhse Shaadi Karogi', 'Calcutta Mail', 'Darmiyaan - In Between', 'Shool', et al.