The last rites of Puneeth were performed at Sree Kanteerava Studios in Bengaluru today early morning. People gathered in large numbers were the body of the actor, wrapped in tricolour. South Indian film celebrities such as N Balakrishna, Chiranjeevi, Junior NTR, Venkatesh, Arjun Sarja and Prabhu Deva also paid their tributes to the actor.The late actor's family and the government had earlier planned to perform the last rites on Saturday evening, once his daughter, who was in the US, reached Bengaluru.
Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai had said, “Puneeth's daughter has reached Delhi and is travelling to Bengaluru and may reach the city by about 6 pm. Secondly, there is lot of crowd here (Kanteerava Stadium) and many people wish to see him for one last time, also after 6pm when it will be dark it will be difficult to perform last rites there (Kanteerava studio).”Considered as the Kannada cinema’s reigning star, Puneeth, youngest of the five children of thespian and matinee idol Dr Rajkumar, died at the age of 46, after suffering a cardiac arrest on Friday. The late actor is survived by wife Ashwini Revanth and daughters Drithi and Vanditha.