Zubeen wanted to relax in Singapore, not just attend North East India Festival: Organiser

Guwahati, Sep 20 (PTI) Popular singer Zubeen Garg had come to Singapore to relax and not just attend the North East India Festival (NEIF), its chief organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta claimed.

The three-day festival was scheduled to begin on Friday, but was cancelled after the death of the singer while "swimming in the sea without a life jacket".

"Zubeen had told the festival organising team that he wanted to go to Singapore and we arranged for his stay at a hotel," Mahanta told PTI from the island nation.

"He had not come for the festival alone but had also made his own plans with members of the Assam Association in Singapore," Mahanta claimed.

Garg had spoken to members of the Assam Association from the northeastern state itself and had made plans with them to visit places and relax before participating in the festival, he said.

"He was also not supposed to give a full-fledged performance but wanted to meet, interact with people and sing a few songs for them," Mahanta said.

Garg did not even bring his entire team of musicians but only his cousin Sandeepan Garg, his manager Siddhartha Sharma and only one musician, Shekhar Jyoti Goswami, he said.

"We had not asked him to perform at the festival, but he always attended our events, whether in India or abroad. He felt it was his duty, as a prominent figure from the Northeast, to represent the region and give out a positive message about the region from all platforms," he claimed.

Mahanta claimed that a section of people was trying to peddle a false narrative.

"I want to make it clear that Zubeen Garg had come on his own free will. There are videos circulating on social media claiming that he had already performed in Singapore, which is not true as our event was scheduled to begin on Friday and he had not participated in any event before the mishap occurred," he said.

Mahanta said that festival organisers were not aware that the singer and his team members had gone on a yacht trip with members of the Assam Association in Singapore.

"We were holding back-to-back meetings with various stakeholders at a hotel, which is very far from the incident site, when we received the news and we immediately rushed to the Singapore General Hospital," he said.

"Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has also mentioned that I was not present with Zubeen during the incident," Mahanta said.

Mahanta said another narrative that NEIF is a business venture is "false".

"NEIF is an attempt to connect Northeast India with Southeast Asia to promote industry, trade, tourism and agricultural products from the region. After we organised the festival in Thailand, a direct flight between Bangkok and Guwahati started," he said.

The aim is to create a market for the products of Northeast India in the ASEAN countries in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of the Act East policy, he said.

"The chief ministers of the northeastern states have been guests and more than Assam, it is the entrepreneurs from the other states of the region who participate in the events," he said.

The NEIF is committed to "take music, dance, cuisine, fashion and all other aspects of our culture to Southeast Asia, which has many similarities with our northeastern states", Mahanta said.

The first edition of NEIF was held in Bangkok in 2019 and again in the same city after a gap of two years in 2022 while the third edition was held in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City in 2023.

This year's edition was expected to mark the 60th anniversary of India–Singapore diplomatic relations and also coincided with the India-ASEAN Year of Tourism. PTI DG DG ACD