Bollywood’s Kharak Singh passes away, Industry mourns the loss

As we said goodbye to 2016 and its alarmingly high celebrity death toll, we feared 2017. And we were right to do so, Veteran actor Om Puri passed away in Mumbai this morning. He was 66. Puri had returned home last evening after a shoot. Reportedly his door bell went unanswered, following which Puri’s driver raised an alarm. As confirmed by his friends from the film fraternity, the actor succumbed to a massive heart attack.

Many of his colleagues and friends from the industry reached Andheri to pay the last respects to the veteran actor at his house, and others are expected to attend the funeral to be conducted at 6 pm today at the electronic crematorium in Oshiwara, Mumbai.

Born on October 18, 1950, in Ambala in Haryana, the Film and Television Institute of India and National School of Drama alumnus made his debut in the industry with a Marathi film called Ghashiram Kotwal in 1976. The Padma Shri award winner whose career spanned about four decades made his mark in English and Pakistani movies apart from his stint in Bollywood and regional films.

Some of his most famous Bollywood movies include Akrosh (1980), Ardh Satya (1982), Dharavi (1992), Yuva (2004), Don (2011), Agneepath (2012), Bajrangi Bhajan (2015). He earned international acclaim through British films such as My Son the Fanatic, East Is East, The Parole Officer. He also appeared in many Hollywood films like City of Joy, Darkness and Wolf .

His upcoming projects included Tubelight and Rambhajjan Zindabad which are slated to release this year.

Bollywood took to twitter to express their grief on his death. Director Karan Johar lauded the actor’s acting prowess.

His contemporaries like Anupam Kher, Mahesh Bhatt and Shabana Azmi also took to social media to express their grief.