Bal Thackeray, a Hindu extremist leader linked to waves of mob violence against Muslims and migrant workers in India, died on Saturday after an illness of several weeks. He was 86.
Jalil Parkar, a doctor who treated him, said the politician had gone into cardio-respiratory arrest “which we tried to revive but we were unable to revive”.
Thackeray, a one-time cartoonist, formed the Shiv Sena – which means Shiva’s Army – in 1966 in Maharashtra. The political party’s main aim has been to keep people who are not from Maharashtra out of the state and stem the spread of Islam and western values.
Thackeray’s Sena is among the most xenophobic of India’s Hindu right-wing political parties and held power in Mumbai from 1995 to 2000. His supporters often called him Hindu Hriday Samrat or emperor of Hindu hearts.
As news of his death was announced outside his residence in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, many of his supporters sobbed and burst into tears.
His body will be kept in a park on Sunday to allow people to pay their last respects before his cremation.
Thousands of his followers from across his power base in the western state of Maharashtra began gathering outside his home in state capital as the news of his ill health spread earlier this week. Mumbai police were on high alert because of the violent history of the group.