When justice-for-Zubeen mission continues

Guwahati: As Assam’s maverick singer Zubeen Garg always attracted media headlines during his lifetime, a mysterious death abroad also provided space for the media fraternity to narrate stories according to their wishes.

When the heartbreaking news surfaced from Singapore, it shocked the entire population of northeast India. But soon the initial sadness turned into outrages among millions of Zubeen’s fans and admirers. They cried foul as ailing Zubeen was taken to the island nation for the 4th North East India Festival.

Since multiple media outlets started pouring news and analytical pieces on his sudden demise on 19 September, Assam came to a standstill, where Guwahati turned into a sea of people in mourning.

The phenomenal singer’s mortal remains was brought back on 21 September and after two days of public viewing he was cremated at Kamarkuchi village near Guwahati on 23 September with full state honours. Thousands bid farewell to the musician, who sang thousands of songs in several languages.

Awarded with various honours, the identical face of Assam’s hugely popular Bihu functions in recent decades, Zubeen could also play a number of musical instruments. An animal lover and a philanthropist by nature, Zubeen also produced and acted in Assamese movies.

But before his body consigned to flames, over 60 complaints were lodged in different police stations across Assam alleging Zubeen had to die because of their collective callousness of some individuals.

Assam government brought all the cases under crime investigation department (CID) of Assam Police and hurriedly formed a special investigation team (SIT), which arrested Shyamkanu Mahanta (chief organizer of the festival in Singapore, where Zubeen was scheduled to perform), Siddharth Sharma (his manager), Shekarjyoti Goswami (a Zubeen associate) and Amritprabha (a Zubeen’s co-signer) against different sections of Bharatiya Nyay Sanghita.

Lately, Zubeen’s cousin and a State police officer, Sandipan Garg has been arrested. Sandipan, who used to function as the deputy superintendent of police in Boko-Chaygaon co-district, was placed under suspension with immediate effect. Many other individuals are still facing interrogations on an everyday basis.

A number of non-resident Assamese professionals, who accompanied Zubeen in Singapore sea outings on the fateful day, were asked to appear before the officials. Among them only Rupkamal Kalita came to Assam to face the SIT interrogations till date.

Earlier, the SIT members raided the residents of Mahanta and Sharma in the city and seized a number of articles. Later a separate money laundering case was registered against Mahanta and currently the young entrepreneur is facing additional probes by the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax department.

Mahanta, who is incidentally the younger brother of a former director general of police (presently chief of the State information commission) and a current vice-chancellor of an Assam-based prestigious university, earlier approached the Supreme Court for transferring the case to a central agency to be monitored by a retired SC judge. Amidst all developments, Goswami had reportedly claimed that Zubeen was poisoned during the Singapore trip under a pre-planned conspiracy.

In the meantime, murder charges were added to the sensational case and the government declared the formation of a one-man judicial commission headed by justice Soumitra Saikia of Gauhati High Court, to monitor the investigation.

Opposition leaders including Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi and State assembly’s opposition leader Debabrata Saikia insisted on a transparent probe (preferably by the Central Bureau of Investigation) into the incident. Gogoi even accused CM Sarma and State BJP leaders of politicizing the Zubeen’s strange demise. Targeting Sarma, Gogoi (who is the deputy opposition leader in Lok Sabha) alleged that he was trying to divert the public attention for safeguarding the accused in the sensational case.

Two regional political party leaders Akhil Gogoi and Lurinjyoti Gogoi are also demanding a CBI probe into the highly suspicious matter as Assam police have no jurisdiction outside the country.
A public interest litigation (PIL) was also filed in Gauhati High Court by Aabhijit Sharma and Palash Ranjan Baruah demanding an impartial investigation into the incident of Zubeen’s death in Singapore.

Zubeen’s widow Garima Saikia insisted on extracting all details relating to the unfortunate incident from the accused individuals. She lamented that Zubeen was like a child and he loved, helped and trusted everyone.

The video-clippings, circulated on social media, show him as exhausted during the swimming. Zubeen had a medical issue and the doctors advised to avoid going near the fire and water, but the group of people brought Zubeen to a yacht party and even encouraged him to swim, she cried out, asking everyone among them to be questioned.

She also returned back the post mortem report of her husband to the concerned police officer, who arrived to hand over the report prepared by Gauhati medical college hospital in the presence of an AIIMS Guwahati doctor. She stated that as the investigation is going on, the report should not be made public and it should remain with the concerned officials only.

Now the SIT is waiting for the viscera sample report from the Central Forensic Laboratory in New Delhi, which is supposed to reach Guwahati by today (10 October. Soon a team of State police may visit Singapore to gather more evidence and other details after receiving the approval from concerned authorities.