Policemen inspect the car after the crash in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, Sunday. (Express Photo by Deepak Joshi)JEHANGIR Pandole, Director, Global Strategy Group at KPMG’s London office in the United Kingdom, who was seated in the back with Cyrus Mistry, also died in the car accident that claimed Mistry’s life. Two other members of the well-known family in Mumbai, Darius Pandole (seated in the front, and Jehangir’s elder brother) and Dr Anahita Pandole (driving the car, and wife of Darius) are seriously injured and currently undergoing treatment at Rainbow Hospital in Vapi.
The Mistry and Pandole family have long been close to each other, with Darius Pandole, Managing Director and CEO of JM Financial Private Equity, a childhood friend of Cyrus, having studied with him at the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai. Anahita is a top gynaecologist and works with Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai.
Sources close to the family told The Indian Express that Darius and Anahita are being treated for multiple fractures and other complications, and will be airlifted early morning on Monday to a top Mumbai hospital. Dr Mehli Nazir, a renowned surgeon at Breach Candy and a close friend of Mistry and Darius, having studied together, has also rushed to Vapi, they said.
A source close to the family said the four had gone to Udwada — a place of pilgrimage, where the Parsi community has its main Iranshah Atash Behramwe. “The Mistry family had renovated the Iranshah with the work being completed last year. Darius and Cyrus were very close friends since childhood and they had gone to visit the place of worship.”
Incidentally, Cyrus and the Pandole brothers (Jehangir and Darius) had lost their fathers earlier this year. While Cyrus’s father Pallonji Mistry died in June 2022, the Pandole brothers lost their father Dinshaw Pandole just a week ago.
Darius is well regarded in the investment banking circles; he managed the operations of the family-owned soft drink business, Duke and Sons Ltd, prior to entering the investment banking space. Darius is credited with successful negotiations that led to the sale of the business to PepsiCo in 1994.
Darius has previously served as a non-executive independent director on the board of Tata Global Beverages. He resigned in December 2016, soon after Mistry was removed from the chairmanship of Tata Sons Ltd. Pandole had voted against the resolution for Mistry’s ouster.
Anahita Pandole, wife of Darius, who was at the wheel at the time of the accident, has been associated with Breach Candy Hospital for a long. She has over 30 years of experience and is known to have handled child delivery in families of several high-profile people in Mumbai. She has on several occasions raised her voice against hoardings in the city and got many removed from heritage sites in South Mumbai.
Last week, she wrote to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) opposing hoardings erected on footpaths, along the Western Express Highway, which could pose a danger to the motorists. She gained nation-wide recognition for the promotion and preservation of the Parsi heritage.
Under the Bombay Parsi Panchayat Fertility Project, she addressed the issue of population decline in the Parsi community. She was part of the Jiyo Parsi programme, a government-funded scheme to help infertile couples from the community become parents.
The Pandole family is also well-known for squash and other sports. Jehangir was a professional squash player and was selected to represent India at the Asian Junior Squash Championships in 1991. Darius and Anahita have two sons.