Puttaparthi (Andhra Pradesh), April 24 (IANS) Spiritual leader Sathya Sai Baba  who has thousands of followers in India and abroad died Sunday of cardiac and respiratory failure after a prolonged illness. He was 85.
"Sathya Sai Baba is no more with us physically. He left his body at 7.40 a.m. due to cardiac and respiratory failure," said a statement from the Sathya Sai Baba super-speciality hospital where he had been admitted March 28.
 
 The news of his death plunged his followers, many of whom had thronged the town, into grief.