Hero Cycles patriarch Satyanand Munjal, 99, passed away at his residence in Model Town in Ludhiana. Popularly known as ‘Mahatma’, Munjal was a much-respected figure in business and social circles. He is survived by six children — five sons and a daughter.

• A devoted Arya Samajist, Munjal was the eldest of the Munjal brothers and built the Hero Group, which has now emerged as one of the largest business conglomerates in India.
• Born on May 24, 1917, at Kamalia, Lyallpur district (now in west Pakistan), Satyanand did his early schooling in a gurukul. At the age of 17, he received an award at Quetta (Baluchistan) for his devotion to the Arya Samaj.
• It was during the 1940s that the Munjal brothers burst upon the corporate scene in India. Looking beyond their traditional business of vegetable trading and pre-empting Partition, they decided to shift base from Lahore to Amritsar in 1943.
• In the holy city, they started supplying components to the local bicycle business.
• Partition forced them to shift base again, this time to Ludhiana. The latter was the right place for young entrepreneurs like Munjals to give impetus to their bicycle component manufacturing business.
• Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia condoled the demise of Munjal.

Apart from building a business empire, he set up the Bahadur Chand Munjal (BCM) Arya schools and was a member of the managing society of Dayanand Medical College and Hospital.