No permit. No ambulance. No warning. Rahul Arunoday Banerjee walked into the sea for a shot and never walked back out. Now the CID wants answers.
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Popular Bengali actor Rahul Arunoday Banerjee died on March 29 while shooting for the television serial ‘Bhole Baba Par Karega’ at Talsari beach in Odisha. The incident took place at around 5:30 pm. Banerjee was filming a scene with co-actor Sweta Mishra when both entered the water and fell into a deeper section.
Police stated that the two actors had been filming in shallow water when the incident occurred. Both were taken to a hospital in Digha, where Banerjee was declared dead. Mishra survived.
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He was 42 years old. Reports suggest he was swept away as the tide came in. Technicians pulled him out of the water. He was rushed to a hospital at Digha in East Midnapore district but passed away before reaching the facility.
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Officials stated that the production team had neither informed local authorities nor secured the required permissions for filming at that location.
The autopsy report revealed that due to being trapped underwater for an extended period, large amounts of salt water and sand had entered Banerjee’s lungs and oesophagus. The cause of death was recorded as suffocation.
Postmortem examination confirmed salt water and sand in the lungs, indicating the drowning occurred while he was still alive. He was cremated the following day at Keoratola Crematorium in Kolkata.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police is now taking over the investigation. This follows a directive from Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. Since a case of unnatural death had been filed by a family member, Adhikari instructed the district police superintendent of East Midnapore to forward a recommendation to the state Director General of Police for a CID probe.
The matter was previously being investigated by a Special Investigating Team (SIT) of the Odisha Police.
According to the Chief Minister, the CID probe is also being initiated to honour the demand of the artists’ fraternity for an independent investigation into the matter.
Banerjee’s wife, Priyanka Sarkar, filed complaints at the Regent Park police station in Kolkata and the Talsari police station in Odisha. She lodged an FIR against five people from the production company responsible for the shoot at Talsari beach. Those named include Shaibal Banerjee and Leena Gangopadhyay, heads of production company Magic Moments, director Subhasish Mondal, floor executive producer Shantanu Nandi, and the production company’s manager Chandrashekhar Chakraborty.
Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari had earlier flagged that an accused, Leena Gangopadhyay, was closely associated with former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and also served as chairperson of the West Bengal Commission for Women. He alleged that police were trying to shield her.
Gangopadhyay resigned from her position as chairperson of the West Bengal Commission for Women after the controversy around the actor’s death surfaced.
The death triggered major unrest in Bengal’s entertainment industry. Co-artists went on strike for several days, demanding a thorough and unbiased probe into the case.
Actors and technicians in the Bengali film and television industry called for an indefinite strike to protest the death. Although actors eventually lifted the strike, they decided to boycott the production company involved in the shoot.
Following the incident, there was a demand that an ambulance be kept at every shoot location.
Rahul Arunoday Banerjee was born on October 16, 1983, in Calcutta. He worked primarily in Bengali films and television. He made his first stage appearance at the age of three in a production staged by his father Biswanath Banerjee’s theatre group, Bijoygarh Atmaprakash. And, he went on to perform in nearly 450 stage productions.
Rahul was married to actress Priyanka Sarkar. The couple had one son. They separated in 2017 but reunited in 2023.
He received the Anandalok Best Actor Award in 2008 and was also a writer under the pen name Arunoday. His known works include ‘Zulfiqar’ (2016) and ‘Byomkesh Phire Elo’ (2014).
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