Zubeen’s secy, festival organiser among 4 charged with his murder

Guwahati: The Special Investigation Team, probing the death of Zubeen Garg, charged four accused, including the singer’s secretary Siddhartha Sharma and festival organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta, with murder in the chargesheet filed in a court here on Friday.

Garg’s band members, Shekhar Jyoti Goswami and Amritprava Mahanta, have also been charged with murder.

Shyamkanu Mahanta was the chief organiser of the North East India Festival, to attend which Garg had gone to Singapore, where he died under mysterious circumstances while swimming in the sea on September 19.

Speaking to reporters after submission of the chargesheet, Special DGP (CID) M P Gupta, heading the SIT team, said that Garg’s cousin and suspended Assam Police officer Sandipan Garg has been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The singer’s two personal security officers (PSOs) -- Nandeswar Bora and Prabin Baishya -- have been charged with criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust by misappropriating funds or property entrusted to them, Gupta said.

Besides murder, Mahanta has been charged with criminal conspiracy, extortion, cheating, and destruction of evidence. Zubeen’s secretary has also been charged with murder, criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust.

In addition to the murder charge, his band member Goswami has also been charged with criminal breach of trust, while Amritprava Mahanta has also been charged with destruction of evidence.

All the accused have been arrested and are currently in jail, with five of them in Baksa Jail and Goswami and Amritprava in Haflong Prison.

The chargesheet was submitted before the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Kamrup (Metro).

Gupta said that the chargesheet runs to 2,500 pages while documentary evidence submitted to the court, both in material and digital formats, runs to over 12,000 pages.

Gupta, who along with another official, had gone to Singapore, said that all evidence received from that country has been submitted before the court.