A Hindu spiritual leader has his followers battling his family over whether he is dead or not. The fact that his body has been in a commercial freezer for months may be a clue, but his adherents say that’s nothing unusual. Oh yeah, another thing- there is a large inheritance at stake.
His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj, the founder of the Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan religious order with a property estate worth an estimated £100 million, died in January, according to his wife and son.
However, his disciples at his Ashram have refused to let the family take his body for cremation because they claim he is still alive.
According to his followers, based in the Punjab city of Jalandhar, he simply went into a deep Samadhi or meditation and they have frozen his body to preserve it for when he wakes from it.
The police initially pronounced Ashutosh dead in January, a victim of a heart attack, but the Punjab High court later ruled that his followers "cannot be forced to believe he is dead." Ashutosh’s wife and son have filed with the court for an an investigation and an order to release the body to the family so they can have him cremated. They say the followers are trying to control the financial empire he left behind. -via mental_floss
(Image source: Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan)