Odisha bids a tearful adieu to Bijay Mohanty

The last rites of actor Bijay Mohanty, who breathed his last on Monday, was held at the Satyanagar crematorium on Tuesday afternoon after a guard of honour on the Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya campus. The veteran actor died at a private hospital after following a heart attack two months ago.

Since last night his fans and colleagues from the film, television, theatre and media fraternity have been visiting the hospital to have a last glimpse and pay their tributes.On Tuesday, his body was first taken to his residence in Bomikhal and and then to the Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya, where he was a teacher for a long period.
Bijay Mohanty was a batchmate of the late Om Puri at the National School of Drama (NSD). After finishing his course in NSD, he came back to Odisha and acted in his own film, Chilika Teere, that won a National Award. In his second film, Naga Phasa, he played the role of a villain. Then he kept on giving one after another memorable performances, for which Odia movie audiences will forever remember him.

Along with working in Ollywood, he also joined the drama department of Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya in 1977 as a lecturer. Besides that, he established a theatre troupe in Baripada that performed in different parts of the state.
He had won state film awards six times for his excellent acting skills. Besides, he was conferred with the Jayadev Award, the highest state recognition in the field of cinema, for his lifetime contribution to the field.
He also contested as a Lok Sabha candidate from Bhubaneswar in the 2014 general polls but couldn’t make it to the lower house.