Mumbai: India’s television industry suffered a third successive blow this week with the death of actor-scriptwriter Nitesh Pandey past Tuesday midnight. On Monday, actor Aditya Singh Rajput collapsed and died in his Andheri apartment, while actress Vaibhavi Upadhyaya lost her life after her car fell into a ravine in Himachal Pradesh.

Pandey, best known for his performances in television serial ‘Anupamaa’ and the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer ‘Om Shanti Om’, suffered a fatal heart attack in a resort in Igatpuri, 50km from Nashik city, which was his favourite retreat. Pandey, who lived in Powai with actress-wife Arpita and son Aarav, was 51.

Investigating officer Nilesh Deoraj of Igatpuri police told TOI, “Pandey would often visit this retreat to pursue his passion for writing. He arrived here on Tuesday and around 10:30pm, the room service attendant brought him dinner. But nobody answered the door. The boy arrived again an hour later and when there was still no response, the staffers opened the door with a master key. They found Pandey lying still on the sofa. Then they rang us, and we arrived promptly to rush him to hospital. But he was declared dead on arrival. The postmortem report stated the cause of death as heart attack. Pandey’s remains were handed to his relatives who left for Mumbai.” The last rites were performed on Wednesday.

Kritika Kamra, Gulshan Devaiah, Deven Bhojani, Hansal Mehta, Manoj Bajpayee, Khushwant Walia, Rajkummar Rao and Nakuul Mehta offered tributes to Pandey on social media. ‘Anupamaa’ co-actor Rupali Ganguly tweeted, “I am numb. Can’t believe it.”

In a media interview she said Pandey was a dear friend, and that they had imminent plans to meet up with their sons who are of similar age.

Pandey had a special flair for comedy and used his wide-eyed, baby-faced look to advantage through an illustrious career of 25 years in theatre, television and cinema. He featured in popular TV serials like ‘Anupamaa’, ‘Star Bestsellers’, ‘Tejas’, ‘Manzilein Apni Apni’, ‘Saaya’, ‘Astitva — Ek Prem Kahani’, ‘Justujoo’ and ‘Durgesh Nandini’. Among his memorable films are ‘Om Shanti Om’, ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’ and ‘Dabangg 2’.

He was a writer of merit, a keen chef and had also founded a production house. He was earlier married to actress Ashwini Kalsekar, but they divorced.