Ghajini actor Pradeep Rawat dies at 74 due to blood cancer

Pradeep Rawat (Pic/X)

Veteran actor Pradeep Rawat, known for his the iconic turn as the terrifying villain in Aamir Khan-starrer Ghajini, has passed away after a month-long hospitalisation due to blood cancer. The actor, aged 74, breathed his last earlier in the day in Mumbai, his manager Siddharth Tiwari told mid-day. "He passed away a couple of hours ago in Mumbai. He had blood cancer. It was a relapse. He had survived cancer five years ago. But for the last one month, he had been hospitalised. His platelet count became very low. So, he couldn't survive," Tiwari said.

Rawat is survived by his wife and a son. His last rites are expected to take place on August 5, Tiwari informed.

While the actor's Bollywood outing was the Vicky Kaushal-led period drama Chhaava (2025), Rawat's filmography goes back several decades as he debuted in 1985 with Aitbaar, helmed by late Mukul Anand and also starring Raj Babbar and Dimple Kapadia. Even before he made a mark on the big screen, Rawat became a household name, courtesy his turn as Ashwatthama in BR Chopra's Mahabharat (1988). His stint on TV we progressed parallelly with work in films is in the 1990s. Some of the popular titles include megastar Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Agneepath (1990), the immensely popular TV show Chandrakanta (1994) Koyla (1997) and Sarfarosh (1999).

His work in TV drastically reduced in the 2000s, but films kept coming, from even languages beyond Hindi. The start of 2000s was marked by the blockbuster Lagaan (2001), where he played the famous all-rounder Deva Singh Sodhi, who joins Aamir Khan's Bhuvan and his team of villagers to play cricket against British. Rawat's collaboration with Khan got another benchmark, seven years later, in the form of Ghajini (2008). While Lagaan saw them as allies, the AR Murugadoss's superhit revenge actioner featured them as nemesis and gave Bollywood a uniquely violent, cold-blooded antagonist in Rawat. Interestingly,the actor had already played the character in the original Tamil version (2005) that starred Suriya in the lead role before reprising the role for the Hindi version.

On the big screen, Rawat was last seen in Telugu comedy drama Gaayapadda Simham and Nepalese feature Aa Bata Aama, both of which released earlier this year.