As Assam awaits the return of its superstar icon Zubeen Garg’s body after he died in Singapore, where he was for the North East India Festival, on Friday, the state government has decided to transfer the investigation to the CID following complaints against festival organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta and his manager Siddharth Sharma.
Zubeen Garg, 52, was a singer, songwriter, actor, filmmaker, and one of Assam’s most influential cultural icons. On Friday afternoon, he died in Singapore, where he went as a Cultural Brand Ambassador for the festival, held under the banner of the High Commission of India.
A statement by the festival organisers said Garg passed away at 2:30 pm at Singapore General Hospital, where he had been taken after suffering complications while swimming during a yacht trip.
On Saturday morning, the Assam government stated that his post-mortem had been completed and that his body was being handed over to his manager, Sharma, and two others from the accompanying team in the presence of officers from the Indian embassy.
Assam came to a standstill on Saturday with nearly all shops and establishments across the state downing their shutters in mourning.
On Friday evening, an individual named Ratul Bora filed a police complaint in Assam’s Morigaon district, accusing Mahanta and Sharma of negligence and mismanagement. This came against the backdrop of fans questioning why he was taken to Singapore despite health concerns.
Morigaon Superintendent of Police Hemanta Kumar Das confirmed that an FIR has been registered based on this complaint under charges of murder.
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“The FIR is as per the complaint. Later on, this can be amended based on what the investigation reveals,” he told The Indian Express.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that owing to multiple complaints, he has directed the DGP Assam to transfer all of them to the CID and to “register a consolidated case for thorough investigation.”
“Both Mahanta and Sharma, as well as the people who were with Zubeen at that time, will come under the investigation… Singapore authorities have started an investigation. Since the place of occurrence is not India, we will get information on the criminal aspect from the Singapore authorities. And in Assam, if there was some wrong intention in taking him from Assam, we will find that out from here. The government will probe this in a completely neutral way so that everything will be in the open and there is complete closure,” Sarma told reporters.
In a statement on Friday, the festival organisers had distanced themselves from the incident. “Earlier today, our entire team was engaged in a business meeting with senior Singaporean industrialists and policymakers at the Shangri-La Hotel to facilitate investments in Northeast India. During the meeting, we received a call from Zubeen’s manager informing us that he had met with an accident and had been rushed to Singapore General Hospital. We later learned that a few members of the local Assamese community had taken him on a yacht visit, of which we had no prior knowledge,” they said.
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The festival, which was supposed to take place from September 19 to 21, has been cancelled after Garg’s death.
