Entertainment / Actor Puneeth Rajkumar laid to rest with full state honours in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: Late actor Puneeth Rajkumar was laid to rest Sunday morning at the Kanteerava Studios amid grieving family members, friends and thousands of fans. His last rites were conducted with state honours at Dr Rajkumar Punyabhoomi in Kanteerava Studio, next to his father and mother.

The body of the actor, wrapped in the tricolour, was kept at the Kanteerava stadium, to let fans and well-wishers pay tributes. Thousands of grieving fans continued to flock the Kanteerava stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday to pay their final respects to Kannada film star. Several film and political personalities paid their respects. South Indian film celebrities such as N Balakrishna, Chiranjeevi, Junior NTR, Venkatesh, Arjun Sarja and Prabhu Deva also paid their tributes to the actor.

The late actor's family and the government had earlier planned to perform the last rites on Saturday evening, once his daughter, who was in the US, reached Bengaluru. Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai had said, “Puneeth's daughter has reached Delhi and is travelling to Bengaluru and may reach the city by about 6 pm. Secondly, there is lot of crowd here (Kanteerava Stadium) and many people wish to see him for one last time, also after 6pm when it will be dark it will be difficult to perform last rites there (Kanteerava studio).”

Speaking to reporters here, he said keeping all this in mind and after discussing with Puneeth's elder brothers Shivarajkumar, Raghavendra Rajkumar and other family members, it wa decided to conduct the last rites on Sunday. 

Considered as the Kannada cinema’s reigning star, Puneeth, youngest of the five children of thespian and matinee idol Dr Rajkumar, died at the age of 46, after suffering a cardiac arrest on Friday. The late actor is survived by wife Ashwini Revanth and daughters Drithi and Vanditha.