Jasjit Singh Randhawa, India’s ambassador to Cambodia since 1997, died last week in London after a “brief illness,” an Indian Embassy official said Tuesday. He was 54.
Randhawa interrupted a holiday trip to Europe late last year to seek emergency medical treatment in Britain for unspecified health problems and had remained in London. Randhawa died last Wednesday, according to Indian Embassy attache Sanjeev Khanduri.
Cuban Ambassador Ruben Perez Valdes, the dean of Cambodia’s diplomatic corps, announced Randhawa’s death Monday at the government donors’ meeting in Phnom Penh.
“He had been suffering from an illness for a period of time,” Valdes said Tuesday. “He was a very professional diplomat and a very gentle person. We [in the diplomatic community] appreciated him very much.”
Randhawa presented his diplomatic credentials to King Norodom Sihanouk on Feb 19, 1997. He was preparing to leave Cambodia for a new posting in the island nation of Seychelles after fulfilling his four-year term as ambassador to Cambodia. Before coming to Phnom Penh, Randhawa had served as a senior diplomat in Switzerland.
A statement from the Indian Embassy Tuesday cited Prime Minister Hun Sen’s visit to India in February 2000 as one of Randhawa’s major achievements.
“He endeared himself to one and all he came in contact with and was instrumental in forging a closer relationship between the two countries,” the statement says.
Randhawa was known among Indian expatriates in Phnom Penh as an “approachable, down to earth guy,” said Meenakshi Negi, who runs Shiva Shakti restaurant and is the general secretary of the Indian Association.
Randhawa is survived by a wife, a daughter and a son.
