Taarak Mehta actor Lalit Manchanda dies by suicide due to financial crisis: Report

Lalit Manchanda dies by suicide

Television actor Lalit Manchanda, who has been a part of shows like Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, India's Most Wanted, Crime Patrol, Maryada, Jhansi Ki Rani, and Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai, to name a few, died by suicide in Meerut. According to reports, he took this drastic step due to his financial crisis.

Lalit Manchanda's body found hanging from ceiling fan

According to a report by Amar Ujala, Lalit had been residing in Mumbai for the past 12 years and did odd roles in television shows for a living. However, after encountering financial woes, he decided to return to Meerut 6 months ago to live with his brother at his home in Prahlad Nagar, in the Lisadi Gate area. Lalit was accompanied by his wife Taru Manchanda and 18-year-old son Ujjwal and daughter Shreya.

On Sunday night, he decided to sleep in a separate room. His family members found his body when they went to wake him up for tea. The family contacted the police, who reached the spot and are now investigating the matter. The body was sent for postmortem and was later handed over to the family members. Lalit was cremated on Monday evening.

Taarak Mehta writer dies by suicide

Back in 2020, Abhishek Makwana, one of the writers of the famous sitcom, was found dead at his house in Mumbai. A suicide note was recovered. According to Mumbai Mirror, Abhishek had mentioned financial troubles as his reason to end his life. His brother Jenis was quoted as saying, "I checked my brother's mail because ever since he passed away, I got multiple phone calls from different numbers demanding to be paid back loans he owed someone. One call was a number registered in Bangladesh, one in Myanmar, and others were from different states of India."

He added, "From what I understood from the email records, my brother first took a small loan from one of the 'easy loan' apps that charge a very high rate of interest. I looked at the transactions between them and my brother closely after that. I noticed that they kept sending small amounts despite my brother not applying for the loans. Their interest rates are as high as 30%."

An official from the Charkop police spoke about the suicide note that was written in Gujarati. "It spoke about the difficulties in his personal life as well as the financial troubles he had been facing over the past many months. Apologising to his family, Abhishek said he tried his best to fight the circumstances, but he couldn't do any longer as the problems are only increasing," said the official.

Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah is one of the longest-running sitcoms, first aired in 2008.