The cabinet used to freeze and preserve the mortal remains of Sri Satya Sai Baba over the two days prior to his burial at Prashanthi Nilayam in Puttaparthi on Wednesday was purchased by a devotee on April 5, some 20 days before Baba was formally pronounced dead.
Lakshmi, who owns Malleswaram based Kumar and Co. International, confirmed to this newspaper that her company had sold the cabinet on April 5 to a man named Raju for `1,07,000.
Raju, cagey about whom the freezer cabinet was meant for, said he was heading for Mysore, changing his story later to say it was meant for someone in Coimbatore.
Lakshmi, who runs the ambulance and coffin services for the firm, said, “When I saw the visuals for the first time on TV on April 24, I realised this was the same ‘freezer box’ that we had sold to Raju on April 5. So I called him and he admitted that he had sent it to Puttaparthi after buying it from us.”
She also revealed that on April 24, the date when Sri Satya Sai Baba was declared dead, they had voluntarily sent two more “freezer boxes” free of charge to Puttaparthi through MS Ramaiah Hospital who had been asked to send an embalmer for Baba’s body. “They had asked for one, but we sent two so that the other one could be kept on standby. But on TV I saw that the “freezer box” which was used was the same one that was bought from us on April 5,” she said.