The 54-year-old Bollywood actress died while in Dubai for her nephew's wedding - AP

Bollywood superstar Sridevi Kapoor died of accidental drowning in her hotel bathtub in Dubai on Saturday, her postmortem report said on Monday.

The Dubai government's media office tweeted that the postmortem analysis of the 54-year old actress, who used only her first name, revealed that she had died due to ‘drowning in her hotel apartment's bathtub following loss of consciousness’.

The case has been handed over to the Dubai Public Prosecutor for further investigation, to try and determine the exact circumstances leading to the actresses’ death.

Earlier, it was reported that Sridevi, who was known by her first name, had died of a cardiac arrest in her hotel in Dubai where she was attending her nephew's wedding.

She was found unconscious in her bathtub in her suite at Dubai’s Emirates Towers hotel and rushed to hospital where she was declared dead on arrival.

The much loved actress was mourned across India Credit: AFP

Dubai’s Gulf News, however, alleged that the glamourous Bollywood star, who acted in 300 films in five different Indian languages, was under the ‘influence of alcohol’ and had fallen into the bathtub and drowned.

But the Dubai authorities did not confirm this, nor did it tweet the results of a possible toxicology test they might have conducted on the actress to determine alcohol intake.

According to news reports from Dubai the latest revelations in Sridevi’s postmortem report could result in a delay in repatriating her body to Mumbai for cremation according to Hindu rites.

Although expected home on Monday on a specially chartered flight, her body has instead been sent for embalming.

Meanwhile, thousands of Sridevi’s fans had gathered outside her Mumbai house to pay their last respects before her funeral.

Sridevi began her acting career at the age of four in southern India and spent the next five decades playing mostly lead roles in films, a large number of which became box office hits.

Her last and 300th movie ‘Mom’ was released in 2017.

She married Bollywood film producer Boney Kapoor in 1996 and they had two daughters.