Mumbai, Sep 17 (IANS) Vishwas V. Savarkar, the sole surviving son of revolutionary leader Veer Damodar Savarkar, passed away here Friday morning following a brief illness, a close family friend said. He was 83.
He died around 11 a.m. at the Savarkar Sadan, the family’s ancestral house near Shivaji Park in central Mumbai’s Dadar, where his father had also lived for several years, family friend Arvind Godbole said.
He is survived by his wife Sunder and two married daughters – Asilata who lives in Thane and Vidula who is settled in Hyderabad.
Vishwas Savarkar’s funeral was held in Dadar, said Godbole, who served as a physician to the Savarkar family.
During his lifetime, the soft-spoken and low-profile Vishwas Savarkar was employed with the Walchand Group and later authored four books, including the noted Katha Krantiveeranchya, besides writing articles and columns for various publications.
His last major public statement defending his father had come in the wake of a controversy over the installation of Veer Savarkar’s statue in parliament nearly eight years ago.
Veer Savarkar was one of the accused in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi but was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Before Vishwas, his elder siblings, brother Prabhakar and two sisters, Prabhat and Shalini, had expired over the years.
With his death, the last direct surviving link with Savarkar, who passed away in 1966, has also ended.
