Violence marred the shooting of the Marathi Sa Re Ga Ma Pa when disgruntled junior artistes vandalised the show’s sets on Tuesday night

It was a musical evening gone horribly wrong. The shooting of the Marathi edition of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa (Zee) on Tuesday night was disturbed when a group of around 25 disgruntled junior artistes created havoc on the sets, breaking doors, cars and even assaulting three studio employees, one of whom was seriously hurt.

The trouble apparently started when a junior artiste association demanded that the audience should comprise entirely of their employees and asked the producers not to bring in any viewer audience. When the producers didn’t heed to their demand, they went on a rampage during the recording of the show, destroying property, breaking doors and even stoning host Pallavi Joshi’s car.

“We  have a section of ‘paid audience’. These are usually taken from the junior artiste associations, but these guys were demanding that the entire audience be  a ‘paid audience’. That is not possible since we have a lot of viewers who want to be part of the show. When we declined, they created a ruckus Business Head, Zee Marathi, Ajay Bhalwankar, said.

While three employees of Famous Studio (the location of the shoot) were hurt, one of them suffered head injuries. A police complaint was lodged and around 20 of the offenders were immediately arrested, sources said.

The recording will continue today under police protection.