Guwahati, Oct 1 (PTI) Northeast India Festival (NEIF) chief organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta and Zubeen Garg’s manager Siddhartha Sharma have been remanded to 14 days’ police custody by the Kamrup Chief Judicial Magistrate in connection with the singer’s death in Singapore, a senior police official said on Wednesday.
The duo was arrested and brought to Guwahati from Delhi on Wednesday morning, Special DGP (CID) Munna Prasad Gupta said, adding that investigations into the singer’s death will 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 the Interpol had been already issued against both.
”On the basis of the notice, immigration authorities detained Mahanta when he arrived at Delhi airport from Singapore and handed him over to 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 further investigations are on”, he added.
After they landed at the Guwahati airport, the duo was taken to the Kamrup Chief Judicial Magistrate’s residence as courts are closed for Durga Puja festivities.
Once the court remanded them to 14 days’ police custody, both were handcuffed and taken to the CID office.
Police sources have also shared the photographs of both Mahanta and Sharma in handcuffs and behind the bars in the CID office.
Tight security was in place both at both the airport and along the way to the CJM’s residence with Assam Police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel accompanying the convoy.
Meanwhile, Zubeen’s wife Garima Saikia Garg, who is in Jorhat for the 13th day rituals 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 now they will 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.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had earlier said that a ‘lookout notice’ through the Interpol had been issued against Mahanta and Sharma, asking them to appear before the CID by October 6.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
