`Sankat City` director Pankaj Advani passes away suffering a heart attack

Mumbai: Director Pankaj Advani, who directed the 2009 release `Sankat City`, died here Thursday morning after suffering a heart attack. He was 45.

Advani entered showbiz as a screenplay writer and wrote the script of Shah Rukh Khan starrer `Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa`. In 2009, he made his directorial debut with "Sankat City" that starred Chunky Pandey, KK Menon and Anupam Kher. Friends and colleagues were shocked by the sudden demise of Advani. "I`m very disturbed since I heard this news. He was an amazing director and a great guy. In fact, post `Sankat City", he had a script that I was going to produce. This is very sad indeed," Chunky told IANS. A shocked Anupam posted on his Twitter page: "I am shocked at the sudden demise of Pankaj Advani, director of one of my favourite films `Sankat City`. It is so sad and unfortunate." Advani`s other friends also expressed grief at his sudden death. "A decade back, we met over a Sunday... today I came to know, you are no more... Life is a flicker... Pankaj Advani... R.I.P," actor Aashish Vidyarthi wrote on Facebook. Advani was a bachelor in Fine Arts (Painting) from the M.S. University in Vadodara and a diploma holder in film editing from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. IANS