Nana Patekar apologises for hitting boy, says it was part of movie scene

Nana Patekar on Thursday apologised for slapping a boy during a film shooting in Varanasi, saying that he mistook the selfie-seeking fan for his crew member.

A video of the veteran actor went viral on social media on Wednesday where he is hitting the boy who came close to him during a scene and tried to click a photo.

The Vaccine War actor, who was visibly angry, smacked the fan on the back of his head. A man stationed close to Patekar then grabs the young man by his neck and takes him away.

Patekar was shooting for filmmaker Anil Sharma's upcoming movie Journey.

The 72-year-old actor posted a video message on microblogging site X and said the 10-second clip has been "misinterpreted" by many people.

In his video message, Patekar clarified that he was shooting for a scene in which he was supposed to hit a crew member.

Patekar said the incident happened by mistake and the crew looked for the young man a lot but he was nowhere to be found.

Patekar was criticised on social media after the video became viral. However, director Sharma defended the actor and said somebody shared a portion of a scene from "Journey" without context.