Two Indian actors drown as helicopter stunt goes wrong

Two stuntmen who did not know how to swim drowned after they jumped from a helicopter into a reservoir in southern India during the filming of a movie, police have said. The crew were shooting the climax of the film on Monday when Raghav Uday and Anil Verma jumped as part of an action sequence. Police superintendent Chandra Gupta said the two stuntmen did not know how to swim and were not wearing life vests, and that a motorboat that was supposed to rush to the scene and rescue them was found to be not working. Local fishermen in small boats rowed to the middle of the lake but found no trace of the two men. One of Kannada cinema’s top actors, Duniya Vijay, also jumped into the Thippagondanahalli reservoir with the stuntmen, but managed to swim and was later rescued by a fisherman. The Kannada language is spoken in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, which has a thriving film industry. A Kannada television channel broadcast an interview with one of the stuntmen in which he said he was scared of performing the jump because he had never done such a stunt before. Police have registered a case of criminal negligence against the film’s director and producers, Gupta said. Shortly before the incident, Uday and Anil had reportedly expressed fears about the stunt and their lack of confidence in the water. “I only know a little swimming,” Anil told PublicTV, as reported by local digital news site the News Minute. “I have only swum in a well where you reach the edge after two or three strokes. That’s all the swimming I know. I’ve never had practice swimming 30ft or 60ft lengths.” Uday, who was reportedly afraid of heights, said: “There was no specific preparation for this scene … the three of us will just jump. That’s all I know. The rest is up to God.”