AKIPRESS.COM - Devotees of a dead guru in India have told the reporters they put his body in a freezer to preserve him as they believe he will return to life to lead them, BBC India reported.

Ashutosh Maharaj was declared dead by authorities in Punjab on 29 January after a suspected heart attack. But, confident that he was merely in a state of deep meditation, his followers froze his corpse.

He led the Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan (Divine Light Awakening Mission) which claims more than 30 million followers.

“He is not dead. Medical science does not understand things like yogic science. We will wait and watch. We are confident that he will come back,” his spokesman Swami Vishalanand stressed and added although doctors had declared Maharaj “clinically dead”, he was actually alive and in a state of samadhi, which is the highest plane of meditation.

The guru is thought to have been in his seventies.

The decision to place the body in the freezer was challenged in court by a man, claiming to be a former driver of the guru, who alleged that his devotees were not releasing the body because they wanted a share of the guru's properties.

The website of the Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan says it was established in 1983 and aims to “achieve world peace”. It claims to have 350 branches in 15 countries.