Former General Electric senior intellectual property (IP) counsel Hitesh S Barot passed away this morning in an accident, after seven months of assisting the Election Commission in simplifying the voter registration process for the 2014 general elections.

Barot was pulled into the Narmada river by a crocodile at his native village Bhalod in Gujarat at 7:45am this morning, according to his friend’s Facebook status, as reproduced in an email to IP website SpicyIP’s mailing list.

Barot had joined the Centre for ethical life & leadership in October to assist former Chief Election Commissioner of India SY Qureshi with modifications to the existing voter registration form, changes in the online registration system, and getting the commission to work with FICCI, NASSCHOM, CII and ASSOCHAM to create a new registration system, according to his Linkedin profile.

His last major piece of work, in his own words on his Facebook status, was:

“147-second video tells you what I've been doing since leaving corporate life. Putting all my networking, advocating, fundraising, people-moving, skills (dare I say, charming personality) to good use to convince the Election Commission of India & the leading industry bodies to partner for voter registration at the workplace. If you know someone in CorporateIndia, link them to indiavoting.org to get all of #IndiaVoting!”