Three NEIF team members summoned, SDGP says case will reach 'logical conclusion'

Guwahati, Oct 3 (PTI) The SIT, probing into the death of singer Zubeen Garg, on Friday interrogated three members of the organising team of North East India Festival (NEIF) with the Special Director General of Police Munna Prasad Gupta asserting that the case will reach 'its logical conclusion''.

The three who had accompanied Garg to Singapore to take part in the NEIF, where he died on September 19, have been remanded to 14 days' police custody, Gupta who heads the SIT told reporters here.

Four people who had gone to attend the NEIF have been arrested so far in the case - the singer's manager Siddhartha Sharma and his musician Shekhar Jyoti Goswami, the festival organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta and singer Amritprabha Mahanta.

The arrested people are being interrogated, Gupta said.

''We will ensure that there will be no lapse on our part during the investigation,'' the SDGP said.

The aim of the SIT is to ensure that the case ''reaches its logical conclusion,'' he added.

Gupta had earlier said that the investigations were ''proceeding on fast track''.

Meanwhile, three members of the NEIF organising team - Pankaj Adhikari, Pritam Talukdat and Krishanu Das - were summoned by the SIT for interrogation.

They, however, did not respond to questions from journalists.

Sharma and Mahanta were arrested in Delhi on Wednesday morning in connection with the singer’s death and were also remanded to 14 days' police custody.

The two have been booked under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for murder, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, criminal conspiracy and causing death by negligence.

The CID has also initiated a separate probe against Mahanta for organised financial crimes and acquiring huge amounts of "benami" properties by money laundering.

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.

More than 60 FIRs were filed across the state against Mahanta, Sharma and several others, following which the chief minister directed the DGP to transfer all the FIRs to the CID and to register a consolidated case for a thorough investigation. PTI DG NN