Zubeen’s manager, organiser arrested for homicide
Zubeen Garg’s manager Siddhartha Sharma and festival chief organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta were arrested at Delhi airport on Wednesday morning in connection with the singer’s death in Singapore last month, Assam Police said. The duo has been booked under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, criminal conspiracy and causing death by negligence.
Soon after their arrest, they were brought to Guwahati and produced before the Kamrup Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court, which sent them to 14 days’ police custody.
Since courts are closed for Durga Puja, the hearing took place at the residence of the judge. Special DGP (CID) Munna Prasad Gupta said investigations into the singer’s death will be ‘conducted in accordance with the law’. The Police Officer said a ‘lookout notice’ through Interpol had already been issued against both.
On the basis of the notice, immigration authorities detained Mahanta when he arrived at Delhi airport from Singapore and handed him over to Assam Police, he said. Regarding Sharma, Gupta said, ‘We tracked his location to Delhi and Rajasthan.
Last night, we tracked him near the Delhi-Haryana border and arrested him. ‘We have seized their mobile phones and also recovered Zubeen’s mobile phone’.
The State Government recently banned Mahanta, the chief organiser of North East Festival, which Garg had gone to attend in Singapore before his death, from holding any function or event in the state. Meanwhile, Zubeen’s wife Garima Saikia Garg, who is in Jorhat for the 13th day rituals of the deceased singer, told reporters that she was satisfied that the duo had been brought to Assam as ‘we are all waiting to know what happened to him in his last moments’.
Garima said she has full faith in the investigating team and hoped that now they will soon know what exactly happened in Singapore. The Assam Government had constituted a 10-member SIT to investigate the singer’s death in Singapore due to drowning in the sea on September 19.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had earlier said that a ‘lookout notice’ through the Interpol had been issued against Mahanta and Sharma, asking them to appear before the CID by October 6.
