Chennai, Jun 2 (IANS): Veteran journalist T.S.V. Hari, a former IANS Bureau Chief in Chennai, died here on Thursday due to cardiac arrest, a family member said on Friday. He was 62.

Hari passed away at 8.55 p.m. at a hospital, his brother-in-law E. Balu told IANS. Hari is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

Hari started as a crime reporter and later switched to political reporting.

He wrote for the Free Press Journal and later worked for Amrita Bazaar Patrika and Indian Express before joining IANS. He wrote for the satirical magazine "Thuglak" under the pseudonym Venkat, said V. Subramanian, a family friend.

Hari wrote the Tamil script for B.R. Chopra's Mahabarata tele-serial, Subramanian said.

Hari was a linguist fluent in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi and German, he added.

The eldest son among nine children, Hari was in the family concern Giri Trading for a brief period before getting into journalism.