Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and State Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot, on Saturday, visited Bengaluru’s Sree Kanteerava Stadium where the mortal remains of Kannada star Puneeth Rajkumar have been placed.
Puneeth left for his heavenly abode at the age of 46 following a cardiac arrest. He was admitted to Vikram Hospital in Bengaluru, after experiencing chest pain, where he breathed his last. Prior to the incident, Puneeth was supposed to meet the CM for which he had fixed an appointment. Talking about the same, the CM told ANI “He had asked me to release a website regarding Karnataka tourism. He was proactive in social work. I had inaugurated his app, which was for poor children who wanted to give competitive exams. Similarly, on November 1, I would have inaugurated an app regarding tourism, the entire concept of which was designed by him. He had called me in that regard and I had given him time yesterday.”
“However, my appointment was not kept. It was so shocking and sudden. The state will miss him, cinema will miss him and especially youth will miss him” he continued and added “Final rites might happen by today evening as per his daughter’s arrival. All arrangements for it have already been done.”
State Governor, Gehlot who had visited the stadium earlier in the day, addressed the media and spoke about the actor’s demise.
He said, “Renowned star Puneeth Rajkumar Ji is no longer among us. Since childhood, Puneet had shown his exceptional talent and even at that young age, he was conferred with several awards for it. Along with achieving popularity in the film industry, he also gained popularity for his social work. The untimely demise of Puneeth Rajkumar Ji is a matter of grief for everyone. I pay my respect to him and pray to God that he gives his family the strength to bear this loss.”
Puneeth’s mortal remains were shifted to the stadium for public viewing, where a large number of fans could be seen waiting to get one last view of their favourite actor. A heavy police force has been deployed at the stadium to control the crowd.
The demise of Puneeth took the entire country by shock and several popular actors from Bollywood and South film industry including Dhanush, Mahesh Babu, Jr NTR, Ram Charan, Abhishek Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, among others, have expressed their condolences.
Apart from that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other noted politicians including Rahul Gandhi, Prakash Javdekar and Nirmala Sitharaman also mourned his death.
Fondly called ‘Appu’ by his fans, the actor entered the industry as a child artist. He was also awarded the National Film Award for Best Child Artist, for the movie ‘Bettada Hoovu’. Later, he debuted with ‘Appu’ in 2002 which instantly became a blockbuster hit. ‘Raam’, ‘Hudugaru’, and ‘Anjani Putra’ are some of his memorable movies.
