Dubai: The last-known urn containing the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi, which was immersed in the sea off Mumbai coast, had been preserved by the family of a Dubai-based Indian businessman for nearly six decades.
The urn was bequeathed to the Gandhi family in 2006 by businessman Bharat Narayan, whose father was a close friend of Gandhi.
The urn was immersed in the sea off Mumbai coast yesterday with full state honours, 60 years after the assassination of the Apostle of Peace.
"It was because of my mother's deep admiration for Mahatma Gandhi that the last-known urn containing the ashes of India's independence icon had been preserved," Narayan, who is the grandson of industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj, said.
"Since the urn could not be taken outside India, we decided to give it to the Gandhi family," Narayan, who has been in Dubai for 32 years, said.
Narayan, 66, said the urn was brought to their house in Mumbai from Delhi by his grandmother.
"Nearly a dozen urns containing Gandhi's ashes were distributed across India after his assassination. Two urns were kept in our house in Maharashtra. One of them was immersed sometime back, while the other remained in our house," he was quoted as saying by Gulf News.
Gandhi's frail 75-year-old great grand-daughter Nilamben Parekh, who is also the grand-daughter of his estranged eldest son Harilal scattered the urn containing his ashes in the Arabian sea in the presence of 15 of his descendants.
The last time an urn of Gandhi's ashes was found was in 1997 in a bank vault in Bhubaneswar. The ashes were later immersed at the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers in Allahabad.
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