Guwahati, Oct 1: Zubeen Garg’s manager Siddhartha Sharma and festival chief organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta were arrested from Delhi on Wednesday in connection with the singer’s death in Singapore last month, the 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, a senior police officer said.
The CID also initiated a separate probe against Mahanta for allegedly being involved in financial crimes and acquiring benami properties by “money laundering”.
An FIR was lodged after the CID’s special investigation team, probing into the singer’s death, raided Mahanta’s residence and seized several documents.
Soon after their arrest, they were brought to Guwahati and produced before the Kamrup Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court, which remanded them to 14-day 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 would be ”conducted in accordance with the law”.
Gupta, who heads the SIT formed to probe Garg’s death, said, ”Both have been remanded to 14 days’ police custody.”
He said a ”lookout notice” through Interpol had already been issued against Mahanta and Sharma.
”On the basis of the notice, immigration authorities detained Mahanta when he arrived at Delhi airport from Singapore and handed him over to the 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,” he said.
Gupta said that both would be interrogated on the basis of the evidence gathered so far, and the investigations were ”proceeding on a fast-track”.
”Before their arrest, we had searched their homes and seized several documents, and after their arrest, we seized their mobile phones,” he said.
Gupta said that all “notices served to people to appear before the SIT will be brought within the ambit of the investigation”.
”We will take action as per the law of the land and according to the evidence received,” he added.
Director General of Police Harmeet Singh said investigation is a legal process and it has to be carried out scientifically, or else it would not stand in the court of law.
”We are professionals, let us do our work according to the law of the land and not sensationalise the issue,” he said on the sidelines of a programme.
The DGP said, ”We have lost our heart and everyone has seen how police personnel have cried while performing their duty following Zubeen’s death.”
He urged people to ”believe and have faith in us and not ask me about the case”.
”It will be legally incorrect for me to interfere and release any statement now, but let me assure you that there will be a final result in the case”, the DGP asserted.
Police sources shared the photographs of both Mahanta and Sharma in handcuffs and behind the bars in the CID lockup.
Tight security was in place at the airport and along the way to the CJM’s residence, with Assam Police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel accompanying the convoy.
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 ‘Mangolik Karya’ 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 they would 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.
More than 60 FIRs were filed across the state against Mahanta, Sharma and several others, following which Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had directed the DGP to transfer all the FIRs to the CID and to register a consolidated case for a thorough investigation.
The CM had earlier said that a ‘lookout notice’ through Interpol had been issued against Mahanta and Sharma, asking them to appear before the CID by October 6. (PTI)
