National award-winning art director Nitin Chandrakant Desai was found dead in his studio in Maharashtra’s Raigad district and police are still doing the investigation. According to ANI, his body was sent for postmortem to JJ Hospital. Raigad Superintendent of Police (SP) Somnath Gharge informed that Nitin's last rites will be performed at ND Studios. As per preliminary findings, the cause of death is due to hanging, Raigad Police said.
The police said, "Postmortem of art director Nitin Desai has been conducted by a team of four doctors. As per preliminary findings, the cause of death is due to hanging. Further investigation is underway." Nitin Desai had taken a loan of Rs 180 crore from a finance company named CFM. The loan agreements were signed in 2016 and 2018. Desai had mortgaged a total of 42 acres of land for this loan, alongside other properties. The art-director was unable to pay off the loans and was under a huge debt and the efforts made by CFM were also unsuccessful. Earlier, the local BJP MLA from Karjat, Mahesh Baldi confirmed that Nitin Desai died by suicide due to financial crisis. Baldi said, "Nitin Desai's ND studio comes in my constituency, the financial crisis was going on for many days and due to that, he committed suicide
During his career spanning 20 years, Nitin has worked with directors like Ashutosh Gowarikar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rajkumar Hirani and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. In 2002, he turned film producer with Chandrakant Productions' ‘Desh Devi’, a devotional film on the Devi Mata of Kutch. In 2005, he opened his ND Studios spread over 52 acres at Karjat, near Mumbai, which has since hosted movies like ‘Jodha Akbar’, ‘Traffic Signal’ and also Color's reality show ‘Bigg Boss’.