New Delhi, April 12 :    New Delhi, April 12:  Dewang Mehta, the prominent and charismatic president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) was found dead in his hotel room in Sydney on Thursday. He was 38. Information technology minister Pramod Mahajan, who was on a networking trip with Mehta in Australia, said his body was found after he failed to wake up in the morning. Police after carrying out the required investigation in the hotel took the body for medical examination, vital to know the cause of Nasscom chief's death. Mehta, who along with Mahajan was staying in the Park Hyatt, was scheduled to leave for India around 1830 hrs this evening (Sydney time), but he did not check out till 1700 hrs. When he did not respond to several calls by the tele-board of the Park Hyatt to remind him about his travel plans, the hotel staff got apprehensive and forced open his room door only to find him dead. The minister said prima facie, his death appears to be due to natural causes. 'But the exact cause could be confirmed only when the report is available.' Mahajan summed up his feelings in a snappy comment: 'He was the real information technology minister of this country.' For a man who tried to tell people that computers are not meant only for bleary-eyed geeks beavering away in cramped cubicles, destiny denied the Elvis Presley of India's software industry the time to complete his message. His death left colleagues, barons and the IT world stunned on a day when technology shares took one of their worst beatings ever due to growing concerns about a US economic slowdown. As a software evangelist, a title earned for his untiring devotion to the cause of promoting the country's fledgling software enterprises, he used his flamboyance and a flair for public relations to win concessions from a tight-fisted bureaucracy. A chartered accountant with a degree in computer graphics and an award for animation under his belt, the 38-year-old Mehta built Nasscom from an obscure industry association with no more than 38 members in 1989 to a formidable forum which has secured the participation of over 800 firms. 'Dewang's untimely death has taken away a champion of India's software industry,' said Saurabh Srivastava, old friend, executive chairman IIS Infotech and Nasscom co-founder. Struggling to cope with the reality of his loss, he talked about how Mehta sent him an emotional e-mail two days back to say he was about to complete 10 years at the 13-year-old Nasscom. The scene at Delhi's Nasscom office, which closed for the day after the news, said it all - stupefied employees struggling to hold back tears, but breaking down when they saw close friends of Dewang, including journalists, trickle in. NIIT chief Rajendra S Pawar said Mehta had done more for the industry than anyone before. 'It is shocking,' said Nandan Nilekani, president and chief operating officer of Infosys Technologies, a bellwether which has come to symbolise the country's ambition to break into the big league of global technology titans.