BlackBerry India Managing Director Sunil Dutt quits

"Sunil Dutt has left his position as Managing Director, BlackBerry India with immediate effect," a BlackBerry spokesperson told PTI.

In the interim, Rick Costanzo, Executive Vice President for Global Sales, will take over the leadership of the India management team as the smartphone maker will start the search for a new sales lead as soon as possible, he added.

"India is an extremely important market for BlackBerry and our aim is to continue to build on our recent momentum with the launch of BlackBerry 10 (Review)," he said.

Dutt, who has served in the Indian mobile technology and telecom sector for 27 years, had joined the Ontario-based company in 2011.

Last month, the Canadian phone maker launched its most awaited model smartphone Z10 (Review I Pictures), powered by its latest operating system 'BlackBerry 10', in India.

The struggling smartphone maker, which re-christened itself as 'BlackBerry' from Research in Motion in January this year, is betting on the new platform to turn around its fortunes.