Spiritual leader Dada Vaswani cremated with state honours

Spiritual leader Dada J P Vaswani, head of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission, was on Friday cremated with full state honours at the mission premises in Pune.

Dada Vaswani passed away on Thursday morning due to old-age related ailments at the mission. He was 99.

Among those who were present at the cremation were senior BJP leader LK Advani and Pune guardian minister Girish Bapat who represented the Maharashtra government.

Pune Collector, Naval Kishor Ram, laid a wreath on behalf of President Ram Nath Kovind.

Bishop Thomas Dabre of the Poona diocese and Gyani Mangal Singh from a city-based gurudwara recited prayers at the ceremony.

Among others who were present were industrialist Lila Poonawalla, Bahri Malhotra of WeikField Industries and Sunil Deshpande, an RSS functionary.

The spiritual leader was cremated beside the mahasamadhi of the mission’s founder, Sadhu T L Vaswani.

A member of the mission said that its working chairperson, Krishna Kumari, lit the havan at the funeral while Radha Soami Satsang Beas spiritual head Gurinder Singh Babaji lit the pyre.

Condolence messages from the President of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis were read out in front of the gathering.

A video clip of the departed guru’s discourse about death was also played.

Born on August 2, 1918 in Pakistan’s Hyderabad city in a Sindhi family, Dada Vaswani, as he was popularly known, was the head of the Pune-based Sadhu Vaswani Mission, a non-profit organisation involved in social work and charity.