What was meant to be the USP of the India International Film Academy (IIFA) event telecast on Star Plus Sunday evening turned out to be a damp squib - editors snipped off vital bits including a large part of Abhishek Bachchan's act.

This was apparently done in a bid to accommodate a four-and-a-half hour show into a three-hour slot.

A source very close to the event says: "Abhishek's long performance which culminated in his father and Aishwarya Rai joining him on stage was snipped by almost four minutes. Considering how hard Abhishek had worked on the performance and how eagerly fans all over the world were waiting to see him dance with his dad and Ash, this pruning of the show's USP was baffling and inexcusable."

The source also took exception to the fact that large chunks were recorded on the reactions from the audience, including Rani Mukherjee and Rekha, so "home viewers were deprived of nearly half the actual performance".

However, Viraf Sarkari, director of Wizcraft International who was in-charge of the event, completely denies the charge.

"We didn't cut anything at all from the televised version of Abhishek's performance at IIFA. Are we mad to do such a thing when we know the nation is agog to watch him dance? Yes, we did focus a lot on audiences' reaction to Abhishek, his dad and Ash's dancing because we wanted the viewers at home to catch the electric atmosphere when Abhishek danced.

"Sure we focused on Rani more than other members of the audience. But that's because she tokenised the feverish excitement of the audience at that moment. Beyond that we haven't tampered with anything that Abhishek did on stage."