Actor Shine Tom Chacko’s journey to Bengaluru for treatment turned into a tragedy he never expected. Around 6 am on Friday, Shine lost his father in a tragic road accident when their vehicle was hit by a lorry. His mother and Shine himself sustained injuries.

Shine had once said that his past mistakes had deeply affected his entire family and that he was trying to move on from them. “A person’s life becomes complete only when one lives for others,” he had said, adding that he would no longer do anything that would disrupt the peace and happiness of his parents. But before that journey could be completed, Shine lost his father.

CP Chacko, Shine’s father, stood by him through every crisis in his life. Even when Shine was arrested in the cocaine case and later faced suspicion in a hybrid cannabis case, his father never left his side. Shine, who had started a production company with his father, had dreams of doing many films under their new production banner. But all of that was left unfinished by his father’s unexpected passing.

After Shine was acquitted in the cocaine case, Chacko had spoken to the media with deep emotion. He said that Shine had been trapped in a maze for nearly ten years for something he hadn't done. “Just because he was caught in a drug case, no one sidelined him or stopped giving him film offers. Everyone knows he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s too busy now to sit idle,” Chacko had said. He had also shared his happiness about the new production company Shine had started. Shine and his brother Jo John were acting in the company’s first film, which was being prepared for release.

There was a deep emotional bond between Shine and his father. Shine had once recalled, “That image of my father sitting downstairs and crying while I was held at the Ernakulam North Police Station during the cocaine case—will never leave my mind.” He had also shared that his parents had first heard about the case through the news channels. “That was the day my younger brother was going to work in Bengaluru for the first time. He gave it up to be with the family,” Shine said in an earlier interview.

“I used to feel a kind of pleasure from these things, even if it was from within a trap. But that pleasure never brought peace to those around me. From one pressure to another, from one tension to the next, it robbed them of a sense of safety in life. If it were just for me, I wouldn’t be able to give it up. Only because it is for them am I able to leave it behind. That’s why I no longer want any of this. The urge to stop comes only when you are doing something for someone else. I’m not blaming the users. I will never say it’s good not to use, nor will I ever say using is terribly wrong. These are people’s habits. But if it’s disturbing the peace of those around you, it’s better to let it go,” Shine had once said in an interview.