Rahul Arunoday Banerjee died trying to save a female co-actor who had slipped and fallen into a depression on an uneven Talsari beach while they were shooting in “knee-deep” water, eyewitnesses said on Monday.

Rahul’s postmortem has revealed that his lungs were inflated with a large quantity of sand and saline water, police said on Monday.

“Rahulji was still standing when madam (the co-star) slipped and fell. She was wearing a sari and was trapped in the water. He went in, trying to save her,” said Tapan Gangai, a local boatman.

Tapan had witnessed the incident from a distance while returning to the Talsari beach in Odisha from the “island of red crabs”.

Another boatman, Pulin, said that after Rahul had been brought out of water sometime later, local onlookers laid him down in a prone position and pressed the back of his chest.

“He threw up some water. He was alive. He was groaning in pain. He was gasping for air. Then the crew (shooting the TV serial Rahul was acting in) took over,” Pulin said.

Following Rahul’s death late on Sunday afternoon, Digha police had said he and the co-actor were shooting on a speedboat in the sea when strong waves, triggered by high tide, had caused both to fall into the water.

While the co-actor was quickly rescued by crew members, it took an hour to bring Rahul out of the water, the police had said.

The 42-year-old actor, writer and podcast host was rushed to the Digha State General Hospital, 11km from Talsari, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.

Tapan told The Telegraph on Monday that he and other local people had been watching the crew working since morning. “They were mostly on the beach, and no one sensed any apparent danger,” he said.

“Towards evening, I saw them in knee-deep water. It looked like a dance. Then, madam fell.”

Another boatman, Bhagirath Jana, was the first to reach Rahul and his female co-actor. She was rescued immediately but Rahul could not be traced for a considerable time, the boatmen said.

Balasore police, who have jurisdiction over the area, said the production team had neither sought permission from Odisha police for the shoot, nor approached the local Talsari police station for the “precautionary steps that are generally taken during such shoots”.

“Had they informed us, we could have made the necessary arrangements,” an officer at Talsari police station said.

“For any such shooting, we keep a doctor’s team, lifeguards, rescue boats and police ready. There was none nearby on Sunday.”

The police said some boatmen and at least one of the crew members had been instrumental in fishing Rahul out of the water.

Rahul’s inquest was conducted at the Digha State General Hospital and his post-mortem at a Tamluk hospital.

“The preliminary post-mortem opinion is clear that the actor had taken in a lot of saline water and sand, which means he was gasping for air under water,” a senior officer from Digha police station said.

After Rahul’s body was brought from Tamluk to his home at Bijoygarh in Calcutta, his family, friends and thousands of others paid their last respects. The body was taken to the Keoratala crematorium on Monday evening for the last rites.

A senior Bengal police officer said a case of unnatural death had been started.

Police sources said the crew members’ statements had several inconsistencies.

“No one from his family has lodged any specific complaint either in Odisha or in Bengal,” the officer said.

The case is being probed jointly by Odisha and Bengal police.