Professor Rita Jitendra has passed away during a live interview on broadcast television.
As Professor Jitendra was being driven to the Good Morning J&K tv studio, the 81-year-old told staff that she hoped to die “while working”. Shortly afterwards, she passed away while being interviewed on the breakfast television show.
The Daily Mail reported that the professor has choked while talking about her life and her career and then suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence and collapsed.
The anchor of the show, Zahid Muktar, said, “She was telling us a few interesting things about her life and was looking absolutely normal,”
“But suddenly she stopped talking and began having hiccups. We had to cut the interview (and switch to) a documentary to attend to her and take her to hospital.”
Speaking to the Indian Telegraph he said, “She had a great association with television and her last words were on how she had started doing the dramas.”
She was rushed to the SMHS Hospital in Jammu where she was declared dead on arrival.
Dr Saleem Tak claimed that she had died due to a sudden cardiac arrest.
“The cardiac arrest may have taken place due to heart arrhythmia, which is an abnormal heart beating.”
The producer of the show, Tanveer Mir, said that she choked suddenly. Mir told Kashmir Reader, “It’s shocking for us as this is the first incident in the Doordarshan history when any guest died in a live program,”
“We managed to run the whole programme to keep the broadcast uninterrupted. But we are very saddened with this incident and we pray for the departed soul.”
This article originally appeared on New Idea.
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