Following four emotionally charged days of mass mourning across Assam, Zubeen Garg (52) was cremated with full state honours on Tuesday.
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Garg, singer, songwriter, actor, filmmaker and one of Assam’s most significant cultural icons, died on September 19 in Singapore, where he was for the North East India Festival.
His body was brought back to Guwahati on September 21 to an unprecedented number of mourners, with lakhs accompanying the convoy with the hearse bearing his body as it made its way to his family’s home.
Since September 21 evening, his body had been placed in a refrigerated coffin at a sports complex in Guwahati’s Sarusajai, where lakhs of fans visited over the next one and a half days to pay their final tributes to Garg.
In the early hours of Tuesday, the body was taken to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital for a second autopsy, which the Assam Government ordered citing “public demand” amidst an outcry over the singer’s untimely death.
On Tuesday morning, Garg made his final journey – once again accompanied by thousands of fans – in an ambulance decked with flowers to the designated cremation ground in Sonapur, located on the outskirts of Guwahati, where the government has announced that a memorial will be set up.
Guwahati: People gather during the funeral of singer Zubeen Garg, on the outskirts of Guwahati, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. Zubeen Garg died while scuba diving in Singapore. (PTI Photo)(PTI09_23_2025_000308A)
Garg’s younger sister, Palmee Borthakur, lit the funeral pyre amid gun salutes. Along with his family, including wife Garima Saikia Garg and father Mohini Mohon Borthakur, were their friends, dignitaries and thousands of fans, who sang his iconic song ‘Mayabini’ in unison while the pyre was lit.
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Following Garg’s death, this song has turned into a hymn, played across memorials and sung by gatherings of fans across the state. He had said in the past that it was his wish that all the people of Assam would sing this song upon his death.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju was present for the final rites as a representative of the Prime Minister, along with Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister of State Pabitra Margherita, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam legislative assembly speaker Biswajit Daimari, leader of the opposition Debabrata Saikia, among others.
