Wagh Bakri Tea Group executive director Parag Desai today died at 49, the company announced on social media. He suffered a brain hemorrhage after a fall last week, and died in hospital on Sunday.

“With profound grief, we regret to inform the sad demise of our beloved Parag Desai,” the company said in an Instagram post.

Several media reports claimed Desai fell after he was chased by stray dogs. “It was stated that the patient fell down after being chased by dogs but apparently, there were no dog bite marks on his body,” said the hospital.

“A CT scan revealed acute subdural hematoma with bilateral frontal contusion,” the statement said.

Shaktisinh Gohil, Rajya Sabha MP and Gujarat Congress chief, offered his condolences and wrote, “Very sad news coming in. Parag Desai, Director and owner Wagh Bakri Tea passed away. He had a brain hemorrhage following a fall. May his soul rest in peace. My condolences to the entire Wagh Bakri family across India.”

Tech Mahindra also paid his tributes to Desai and called it an “untimely loss”. “Very sad to hear about Parag Desai’s death. A terribly untimely loss indeed,” he said in a post on X.

Parag Desai was one of the two executive directors on the board of Wagh Bakri Tea Group, who led their transformation into tea lounges and e-commerce.

He was spearhead the group’s sales, marketing and export departments. He was also an expert tea taster and evaluator.

Wagh Bakri Tea Group was founded in 1892 by Narandas Desai. Today, it has a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore.

The group has presence in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Western Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and recently forayed into Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.

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US President Joe Biden said on Monday that any discussions about a Gaza ceasefire could only take place if Hamas frees all hostages seized from Israel in its October 7 attack.

“We should have those hostages released and then we can talk,” Biden said at a White House event when asked if he would support a “hostages-for-ceasefire” deal.

Biden then apologized for having to leave the event to promote his economic program ahead of next year’s election, saying he had to go to the White House Situation Room for “another issue I have to deal with.”

His comments came shortly after Hamas said they had freed two more women hostages abducted from Israel.

American mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan were freed on Friday.

Israel on Monday increased the number of confirmed hostages to 222 people seized when Hamas gunmen crossed the border and attacked kibbutz communities, towns and military bases in southern Israel.

Israeli officials say the Hamas militants killed 1,400 people in the nation’s worst-ever attack.

Israel hit back with a blistering bombing campaign which Gaza’s Hamas-run health authority says has now killed more than 5,000 people.

Biden also touched on a call he had with Pope Francis on Sunday about the Israel-Hamas conflict and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“The pope and I are on the same page, he was very very, very interested in what we were doing,” Biden said.

Biden said he had “laid out to him what the game plan was” regarding US support for Israel.

“The pope was across the board supportive,” he added.

 Israel will not hold off on a possible ground invasion of Gaza over the issue of captives being held there, Israel’s energy minister told German tabloid newspaper Bild.

Hamas gunmen killed 1,400 people and took more than 200 hostages in cross-border assault on Oct. 7.

In an interview published on Tuesday, energy minister Israel Katz said everything would be done to bring the hostages home. “But that cannot hinder our actions including the ground offensive, if we decide on it,” he was quoted as saying.

“Hamas wants us to deal with the captives and wants the military to not go in to eliminate their infrastructure. That will not happen,” Katz added.

The armed wing of Hamas said on Monday it had released two more female civilian captives on health grounds in response to Egyptian-Qatari mediation efforts.