Badal (Punjab):  Akali stalwart Parkash Singh Badal was cremated with full state honours at his ancestral village in Punjab’s Muktsar district on Thursday with thousands of mourners and leaders across the political spectrum paying their last respects to the five-time chief minister.

SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal lit the funeral pyre at a special platform erected for the last rites.

Badal’s mortal remains were taken to the family’s farmland, around a kilometer from his residence, on a flower-decked tractor-trolley with his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and other family members standing with folded hands as the vehicle moved past the mourners on the route.