Mandira Bedi shares heartbreaking first post after husband Raj Kaushal's death, friends offer support

Mandira Bedi has shared her first social media post after her husband Raj Kaushal's death last week.

Mandira Bedi on Monday shared an Instagram post in remembrance of her late husband, filmmaker-producer Raj Kaushal, who died on Wednesday at the age of 49. She had previously changed her display picture on Instagram to black.

Mandira Bedi and Raj Kaushal tied the knot in 1999.

Mandira Bedi shared three pictures of herself and Raj Kaushal, posing with smiles on their faces. They held glasses of wine in their hands and seemed to be sitting at a dinner table. She captioned her post with a broken-heart emoji. Aashka Goradia, Harbhajan Singh, Mithila Palkar, Armaan Malik and others expressed their condolences in the comments section.

A prayer meet for Raj was held at the couple's Mumbai house on Saturday. It was attended by industry figures such as Mouni Roy and Vidya Malavade. Raj is known for directing films such as Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, Shaadi Ka Laddoo and Anthony Kaun Hai?. He also produced filmmaker Onir’s acclaimed drama My Brother… Nikhil.

The couple's friend, music director Sulaiman Merchant, said in an interview that Mandira and Ashish Chowdhry drove Raj to the hospital following his heart attack, but couldn't make it in time.

Sulaiman Merchant told a leading daily, "Raj was feeling uneasy in the evening. Well, he took an antacid tablet. Raj told Mandira that he was getting a heart attack. Mandira acted swiftly and called Ashish Chowdhry, who rushed to their place. Mandira and Ashish put him in the car but he was losing consciousness. I think they drove off, taking him to the Lilavati Hospital if I'm not wrong. But in the next 5-10 minutes, they realised that he had no pulse. Before they reached the doctor, it was too late." Sulaiman also said that Raj had suffered a heart attack previously too. He said, "I think he was 30-32 then. But they took a lot of care after that attack, and he'd kept fine since then."