Kannada star Puneeth Rajkumar’s last rites will be performed tomorrow, said Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Saturday. The 46-year-old actor, who died yesterday due to a massive heart attack, will be cremated in Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru with full state honours.
Stating the reason for the change in timing, Bommai said that the late actor’s daughter has reached Delhi (from US) and will arrive in Bengaluru by 7 pm today. “As per our tradition, we don’t perform funeral after sunset and thus, it will be performed tomorrow,” he informed.
Puneeth passed away at the age of 46 following a cardiac arrest on Friday. He was admitted to Vikram Hospital in Bengaluru, after experiencing chest pain, where he breathed his last.
His 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 Karnataka CM Basavaraj S Bommai, Rahul Gandhi, Prakash Javdekar and Nirmala Sitharaman also mourned his death.
Son of matinee idol Rajkumar, who was also lovingly called ‘Appu’ and ‘Power Star’ by his fans, Puneeth was associated with the silver screen since he was a child.
The 46-year-old actor has been the lead star in 29 films since his 2002 acting debut in ‘Appu’, with his last release being ‘Yuvarathnaa’, which came out in April earlier this year. His other notable performances include, ‘Raam’, ‘Hudugaru’, and ‘Anjani Putra’.
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