2020 has predominantly been a year filled with grief for people world over as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Apart from the COVID-19 outbreak, there have also been natural disasters and other serious incidents across the globe, with several notable personalities also succumbing to their deaths this year. Among the people from the entertainment industry from whose deaths many are yet to recover are Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, popular Tamil comedian Vadivelu Balaji and most recently legendary singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. 

In that light, popular Kannada director Shahuraj Shinde passed away on Thursday (November 19) morning due to a sudden cardiac arrest. He was 50. The veteran filmmaker had been a part of the Kannada film industry for more than two decades and was reportedly gearing up to go to Mumbai for the post-production works on his upcoming film. He succumbed to his death a few minutes before leaving his residence in Bengaluru. It has been revealed that Shahuraj had been suffering from heart-related ailments over the past couple of years, with his passing away leaving those in the Kannada film industry in a state of shock. Ashu Bedra, one of the lead actors of his upcoming film, Rangamandira, conveyed the news on Twitter and expressed his grief.

Shahuraj Shinde is best known among Kannada cinema fans for making films like Snehana Preethina and Arjun. Snehana Preethina was the remake of hit Hindi film Ishq, released in 1997, which had Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgn, Kajol and Juhi Chawla in the lead roles. It is to be noted that two of Shahuraj's upcoming Kannada films, Champion and Rangamandira, were planned for a theatrical release. However, the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent nationwide lockdown, which led to the shutting down of cinema halls, delayed the production of those films. Shahuraj is said to have been working on the pre-production of a couple of other films before his sudden demise.