Kavi Kumar Azad who played Dr Haathi in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, died an unfortunate death earlier this month on July 9. The team has been trying to still cope with the loss and has now decided to cancel their 10-year celebration plans due to the same. According to reports online, the makers had something special in mind since it is going to be a decade on July 28 since the show went on air. The makers will now have a puja on the sets of the show instead.

Not just that, the makers had also planned to go to Vaishno Devi for the next schedule of the show. However, they then realised that it would be too chaotic to shoot with such a huge star cast there so they eventually dropped the idea.

Azad's sudden demise left the team of TMKOC heart-broken. He was supposed to shoot with the crew at Filmcity, Goregaon the immediate morning. However, he complained of uneasiness for which he took an off from shoot. An official statement was issued by the show makers that reads as, "We are very sad to inform loss of our senior actor Kavi Kumar Azaad. He was playing the character of Dr Hathi in TMKOC. We lost him to a massive cardiac arrest today morning. He was an amazing actor and a very positive person. He truly Loved the show and always came for the shoot even if he was not feeling well. He called today morning that he is not well and will not be able to come for shoot. And later we got the news that he passed away. We are all too numb to say anything."

Kavi Kumar Azaad aka Dr Haathi was a part of the show right from the start. He has now been replaced by Nirmal Soni on the show.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 24, 2018 10:19 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).