Darjeeling boy and Kolkata Police constable Prashant Tamang, who won Indian Idol 3 in 2007 to become a symbol of Gorkha pride before acing an assassin’s role in the critically acclaimed 2025 web series Paatal Lok 2, died after suffering a cardiac arrest at his Delhi home on Sunday. He was 43.
The talent show that launched his showbiz career had also sown the seeds of a new party in the Darjeeling hills and given a fresh fillip to the call for a Gorkhaland state, carved out of Bengal. (Prashant, who never concerned himself with politics, kept asserting his loyalty to Kolkata Police, refusing to quit the force.)
Bimal Gurung, then a Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) politician, ran a campaign to get Gorkhas to cast their audience votes for Prashant in the music contest, thus gaining enough publicity for himself to launch the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.
Prashant’s last Bollywood project was the upcoming Salman Khan-starrer Battle of Galwan, set for release in theatres on April 17. He is survived by his wife Geeta Thapa and four-year-old daughter Ariah Tamang.
Prashant Tamang's flat at Lower Tungsung near Tungsung Primary School in Darjeeling
An ethnic Nepali Indian from Lower Tungsung in Darjeeling, Prashant took up a job with the Kolkata Police in 2002 after the death of his father Madan Tamang, a traffic constable, in an accident.
He was inducted into the reserve force and was later put in the special action force. His tour of duty in uniform took him to the homes of Bengal’s current and previous chief ministers, Mamata Banerjee and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
A talented singer, Prashant joined the police orchestra. Life for the Shah Rukh Khan fan took a dramatic turn after he won Indian Idol in September 2007 and bagged a ₹1-crore music contract with Sony.
He became a celebrity in Nepal as well and began performing in live shows overseas, especially in West Asia, before joining the Nepali film industry in 2009.
His debut film Gorkha Paltan, in which he played the lead, was a smash hit in Nepal. But he did not forget his first employers.
“My job as a constable with Calcutta police means a lot to me. It’s a very emotional thing as I got the job because of my father’s death,” he told The Telegraph in 2012.
“And what I am today is because of the support from my department and that’s why I don’t want to quit.”
He had added: “I have been on special leave since 2007, which means no work and no pay. The salary is not important. I hope the department will support me as it has done in the past.”
Darjeeling was agog with excitement in 2007: For the first time, a Gorkha had captured the national imagination. Gurung whipped up hysteria in the hills, holding rallies, collecting funds and exhorting people to vote for “Pahar ka Gaurav (the Pride of the hills)”.
GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh, his political clout waning by then, had refused to publicly back Prashant. After the young man won the contest, Gurung launched his statehood politics with his new party.
This marked a turning point in hill politics: The GNLF steadily lost ground and the Morcha’s fortunes rose, with Gurung emerging as the most influential political leader in the region.
Prashant had told this correspondent that he was planning to produce a film on his stint as a constable. Recalling the days he had spent on duty outside the homes of Mamata and Bhattacharjee, he said: “The film will be my way of paying tribute to the force.”
He said he used to carry a transistor with him during night duty outside the Raj Bhavan.
“I used to listen to songs and then practise, and my colleagues used to make fun of me. But later they started respecting my love for music and encouraged me. That was how I practised before I was inducted into the police band,” he said.
Mamata expressed condolences in a post on X.
“Saddened by the sudden and untimely demise today of Prashant Tamang, the popular singer of ‘Indian Idol’ fame and an artist of national renown. His roots in our Darjeeling hills and one-time association with Kolkata Police made him particularly dear to us in Bengal. I convey my condolences to his family, friends, and countless followers,” she wrote.
The Hills mourned his passing, with Darjeeling MP Raju Bista and Kalimpong MLA Ruden Sada Lepcha paying tributes.
“He has given widespread recognition to all Nepali song-music along with the Gorkhas of India, and recorded his name in the diversity ofsong and music to the world,” Bista posted.
Additional reporting by Avijit Sinha in Siliguri