GG News Bureau
Guwahati, 2nd Oct: Assam Police on Thursday booked singer Zubeen Garg’s manager Siddharth Sharma and North East India Festival manager Shyamkanu Mahanta on charges of murder, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, criminal conspiracy, and causing death by negligence in connection with the singer’s death in Singapore last month.
Sharma was arrested from an apartment in Gurugram, while Mahanta was taken into custody at Delhi airport after his flight from Singapore landed. Both were brought to Guwahati and remanded to 14-day police custody, according to PTI.
Senior CID officer Munna Gupta confirmed the interrogation of the accused has begun. “The investigation is going on… we have added charges under Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,” Gupta said. Section 103 relates to punishment for murder.
The Assam government had earlier formed a 10-member SIT led by Special DGP Gupta to probe Garg’s death. The 52-year-old singer was found floating face-down after a swim in Singapore on September 19, ahead of a music festival.
Singapore authorities have shared an autopsy report with the Indian High Commission, while results of a second are awaited. Investigators are piecing together Garg’s last 48 hours, especially after pharmaceutical drugs were recovered from his bag — which was in Sharma’s possession. The drugs have been sent for analysis.
Several people close to Garg, including his former bandmate Sekhar Jyoti Goswami, singer Amritprava Mahanta, and cousin Sandipan Garg, have also been questioned.
Garima Garg, the singer’s wife, reacted to the arrests by saying, “The law will take its own course. We have to know what exactly happened. They should be questioned. The investigation is on, and we all should cooperate.”
The Assam government has also announced plans to build a second memorial in Jorhat to honour Garg’s legacy in music and cinema.
Notably, Mahanta is the younger brother of former Assam DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, who is now Chief Information Commissioner of the state, and elder brother of Nani Gopal Mahanta, Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University.
