Producer and Director of a Bhojpuri film `Dagabaz’, presently under shoot in Deoria and Gorakhpur districts, had themselves turned out to be `Dagabaz’ in their real lives when they reportedly cheated their colleagues and absconded leaving 15 of the unit members of the film in a hotel at Deoria. 

Both producer and director, who were untraceable, had not made any payment and now the hotelier was asking to clear the pending dues from the remaining unit members.  The matter was now reported to the local police. Interestingly, inspired by promotion of shooting of films in Uttar Pradesh by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, the hotel owner continued to provide stay and food to the unit members but was asking to make arrangement so his dues could be cleared. He also asked the unit members that if they wanted to leave, they can also go after lodging a case against the producer and director but due to demonetisation, most of the members had no new currency to return to their native towns. 

Reports said that 15-unit members of film `Dagabaz’ which included cameraman, co-stars, and other staff for shooting, belonging from Mumbai, Bihar and Nepal, were lodged in Hotel Geetanjali in Sadar area of Deoria district about a fortnight back. The film was shoot in Deoria, Gorakhpur and some other adjoining districts for the last two weeks but suddenly on Monday evening, after the first round of shooting was almost completed, both producer and director of the film played `dagabaz’ and escaped from the hotel without clearing any bills which included both lodging and fooding. 

Reports said that when the hotel staff pressurised to clear Rs 80,000 pending bills, the unit members revealed that they had no money and that they themselves were cheated by the producer and director. Surprisingly, none of the unit members know the identity of the producer and director and they revealed to the police, which reached after information, that they were contacted over telephone for the shooting through mobile phone after which they came to Deoria. They also disclosed that the accused had promised them free stay and food and that their payments will be cleared once the shooting will be over. They informed about the mobile number to the police but the cops found it to be `switched off’. An application in this regard has been handed over to local Kotwali police station and cops were making efforts to trace out the accused who said to be belonging to Bihar.