Mohun Bagan's former footballer, defender Rishi Kapoor passed away on Monday morning at a hospital in New Delhi after a cardiac arrest. 

According to information conveyed by one of his friends, Puspinder Kundu, one of the assistant coaches at Mohammedan Sporting, Rishi was admitted to hospital on Sunday night due to multi-organ failure disease. “Doctors asked his wife to arrange sufficient amount of blood. But even after accumulating the blood, doctors could not save his life,” said Kundu. He added, “I am speechless. He was my close friend. After I joined Mohammedan Sporting he called me, congratulated me-all happened only 10 days ago.”

Rishi was 48 years old and is survived by his wife and a son. After leaving Mohun Bagan Rishi was in New Delhi, working at AG Delhi, and also was involved in coaching the office team.

The defender who had an impressive four-season stint with the green-and-maroon brigade since 2000 can be remembered for an excellent long ranger goal against East Bengal.

His teammate and another close friend, former India international Renedy Singh also mourned saying, “We were close friends. We even stayed at the club’s hostel on Elliot Road for one season. I have several memories with him."

Rennedy added, “He was a beautiful footballer. He had excellent defending qualities as well as an impressive quality of overlapping. He helped attackers a lot. Today is a very sad day for me.”