Corporate leaders, politicians and celebrities joined hundreds of people on Thursday as they bid final adieu to one of India's most respected and internationally recognised business leaders, Ratan Tata, who died aged 86.
Last rites were performed at Mumbai's Worli Crematorium with full state honours in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, his cabinet colleague Piyush Goyal, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, and Congress leader and former chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde. Family and friends as well as top officials of Tata group joined the ceremony where Mumbai Police paid tribute to Tata with a gun salute.
Tata, the former Tata Group chairman who transformed a staid group into India's largest and most influential conglomerate with a string of eye-catching deals breathed his last at south Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital at 11.30 pm on October 9.
Maharashtra as well as half a dozen other states declared one day mourning while some official programmes, including a scheduled press conference by Goyal on his US visit, were cancelled in his honour.
The industry titan's family members, including the half-brother Noel Tata, and top executives from the Tata Group like chairman N Chandrasekaran, were present at the crematorium in Worli.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, his cabinet colleague Piyush Goyal, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, Congress leader and former CM Sushilkumar Shinde, among others, were also present.
The last rites were performed as per the Parsi tradition, one of the priests present at the crematorium said.
After the funeral, there will be three more days of rituals which will be conducted at the late industrialist's bungalow in Colaba, south Mumbai, he said.
Tata (86), a Padma Vibhushan recipient, died after a brief illness at a city hospital late on Wednesday night.