'Forgive All, Time To Go Now': Family's Emotional Farewell To Harish Rana

"It's time to go now, okay?" - In the quiet lanes of Ghaziabad, Harish Rana's family gathered around his bed on which he lay motionless, saying their final goodbye shortly before he was taken to AIIMS Delhi, where doctors are gradually withdrawing his life support. Rana, once a student at the Panjab University, was granted the 'right to die with dignity' last week after the Supreme Court permitted him passive euthanasia - the first-ever in the country.

A 22-second heart-wrenching video has surfaced showing Rana's family spending their last moments with him. His mother sat close to him, with her face etched with devastation. A Brahma Kumaris sister was seen applying 'tilak' on his forehead. "Forgive everyone, apologise to everyone. It's time to go now, okay?" she told him while stroking his head.

The Rana family has links to the Brahma Kumaris - a social-cultural organisation which helped them find a lawyer to fight for Harish's euthanasia.

"Forgive everyone… apologize to everyone… it's time to go now, okay?"

Harish Rana has been brought to AIIMS, Delhi. His life support will now be removed.

13 yrs of a family's hope, prayers and sacrifice ending today 💔 pic.twitter.com/qZt4RYtA3x

— BALA (@erbmjha) March 15, 2026

Rana suffered serious brain injuries after a fall from the fourth floor in 2013. Since then, he has been on life support and confined to a bed with a tracheostomy tube for respiration and a gastrojejunostomy tube for feeding. After years of exhausting hope against every medical certainty, Rana's parents filed a plea seeking euthanasia for him, which was finally allowed by the Supreme Court.

Countries Where Euthanasia Is Legal

This is the first time ever that a passive euthanasia was granted to someone in India. 53 years before this, the top court had denied the 'right to die' to Aruna Shanbaug, a 25-year-old nurse who suffered a brutal sexual assault at Mumbai's King Edward Memorial Hospital in 1973. The assault caused severe brain damage and left her in a vegetative state for the next four decades. The court had initially allowed passive euthanasia under strict guidelines, but ruled that active euthanasia was not permissible, enabling her to continue receiving care from hospital staff. Shanbaug died in 2015 of pneumonia.

'To love someone...'

A bench of justices J B Pardiwala and K V Viswanathan of the Supreme Court, who pronounced the landmark judgment for Harish Rana, praised his parents, saying, "To love someone is to care for them not just in times of joy, but in their saddest and darkest hours." The court added that throughout the adjunction of this matter, they have been gripped by "profound sadness".

About Love, Life And Loss: Top Court's Remarks In Passive Euthanasia Case 

"For the past thirteen years, the applicant has lived a life defined by pain and suffering. A suffering made all the more cruel by the fact that, unlike most of us, he was stripped of the ability to even give voice to his anguish. We note with immense respect that the applicant's parents and siblings have stood as unyielding pillars of support. They have exhausted every effort to care for him and continue to do so with unwavering dedication," the court said.

It added, "We can only place on record our deepest appreciation for their boundless love, endurance, and kindness in the face of such adversity."

Observing that its decision does not neatly fit "within logic and reason" but between "love, loss, medicine and mercy", the bench said its order is not about choosing death, but is rather one of not artificially prolonging life.