A beloved Indian singer drowned in Singapore. Now fans want answers

A beloved Indian singer drowned in Singapore. Now fans want answers

Indian singer-composer Zubeen Garg told an interviewer recently that his home state of Assam would "shut down for seven days" when he died.

His remark almost proved prophetic - for days after he drowned in the sea in far-off Singapore, Assam was at a standstill, with schools closed, shops shuttered and bustling markets deserted.

Three weeks later, the state is still on the edge, unable to come to terms with the death of a beloved icon.

The 52-year-old singer, often described as the "first true rockstar of Assam", had gone to Singapore to perform at a live concert scheduled for 20 September. A day before that, he had gone on a yacht trip with a group of people when tragedy struck.

Singapore police said they had received a call for assistance at St John's Island and had taken an unconscious Garg to the hospital, where he subsequently died. They added that there was no foul play, The Strait Times reports.

Before Garg's cremation in Assam on 23 September, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said a second autopsy had been conducted to ensure transparency.

But despite initial reports pointing to an accident, the singer's death is now caught up in allegations of conspiracy and murder.

At least 60 complaints have been lodged with the state police. Five people who were in Singapore with Garg have been arrested - they have denied wrongdoing and say they are co-operating with the investigation. There is still no clarity on what happened in his last moments.

The grief and despair over Garg's death are not hard to understand.

A cultural icon in Assam, he sang in more than 40 languages and dialects in a career spanning 33 years. His hit Hindi song Ya Ali from the 2006 Bollywood film Gangster made him famous across India.

He often described himself as a "king" and the north-eastern state as his "kingdom", and was loved by his fans for his music as much as for his flamboyant clothes, "don't give a damn" attitude and embrace of issues that concerned northeast India.

Garg emerged in Assam's musical landscape in the 1990s, says Akhil Ranjan Dutta, professor of political science at Gauhati University. "It was a time when the state was witnessing violence caused by separatist groups and counter-insurgency operations by the government, which had pushed the lives of common people into uncertainties."

"The lyrics, the rhythm and the experiments of Garg generated vibrant waves in Assam's music. He single-handedly filled up a void in a dark era that was also marked by immense economic backwardness," he adds.

When Garg's body was flown back to Assam's main city Guwahati, it was kept in a stadium for two days to allow hundreds of thousands of mourning fans to pay their last respects.

Popular musicians from across India paid tribute and Prime Minister Narendra Modi called him the "brightest gem of Assamese culture" who would "always remain in our hearts".

Garg's cremation - with state honours and a 21-gun salute - was attended by more than a million mourners with many singing lines from Mayabini, one of his most popular songs.

But alongside the mass outpouring of grief and fans struggling to come to terms with the tragedy, there was also widespread anger, with his fans and admirers accusing authorities of insufficient transparency around the circumstances of his death and demanding justice.

The public anger that we see in Assam today is linked to the grief of losing him," senior journalist and Guwahati-based author Manorom Gogoi told the BBC. "Zubeen was akin to no other celebrity. He was much more than a singer or a musician. He was known for his vocal political activism and generosity. He was like a king who lived among the commoners. People loved him for that.

His death, Gogoi says, "has come as a shock not just because it was sudden but also because of the mystery surrounding it".

With calls for a full, impartial inquiry growing louder and questions swirling over exactly what went wrong, the state authorities have constituted a nine-member special investigation team (SIT) of the police to look into the death. Chief Minister Sarma has also set up a judicial commission with a judge to oversee the probe.

In the past few days, police have arrested three men and a woman who were in Singapore with the singer - his manager, the festival organiser and two members of his music crew. A fifth man - a police officer who is Garg's cousin and had also travelled to Singapore - was also taken into custody on Wednesday.

Police earlier said they had been arrested on suspicion of negligence, criminal conspiracy and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

But Munna Prasad Gupta, a senior police official who is heading the SIT, later told a press conference they were also investigating this as murder. He refused to give any details, saying the investigation was under way.

All four arrested have been placed in 14-day police custody. They have denied any wrongdoing. Garg's arrested cousin has said he is co-operating with the investigation.

Garg's autopsy report, sent by Singapore, has been handed over to the police and Chief Minister Sarma has said that a toxicology report from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Delhi on his viscera samples is expected later this week.

But the furore over Garg's death continues. The anger is visible in public gatherings, on social media and in the state's politics - and it remains the biggest story in the regional media. His fans have tried to storm the house of one of the arrested men and clashed with police.

The main lawyers' association in the state has put out a statement saying they will not represent any of the accused. One of the arrested men has petitioned the Supreme Court seeking protection from this "calculated witch-hunt".

The tragedy has now also become a politically charged issue in a state set to hold assembly elections next year, with Mr Sarma's governing BJP and the opposition Congress accusing each other of indulging in politics. The chief minister even told people that if he failed to deliver justice for Garg, they could punish him by not voting for the BJP.

Some of the outrage is fuelled by short videos that have appeared on social media that claim to show the singer on his last day. They show him on the yacht, then swimming with - and later without - a lifejacket. One that shows him struggling to swim has led many fans to ask why he was allowed to swim when he looked visibly tired.

Those voices have grown louder, especially after his wife Garima Saikia Garg shared details about her husband's health, saying that "he was on medicines, which he always carried with him, and that people who surrounded him every day knew" about his health issues.

Saikia Garg is now seeking answers. "What actually happened to him, we don't know. How it happened is still a mystery. He was the victim of negligence, that much is certain. But why was a person like him neglected? We want all the answers.

If people are found guilty, they should be given the strictest punishment.

Chief Minister Sarma has said that those answers can come only once the other people who were present with Garg on the yacht in Singapore come forward and help police join the dots.

"Our entire concern now is whether those people who live in Singapore will come or not. If they do not come, we will not be able to complete the inquiry," said Sarma.

But then he went on to add, "Their parents stay in Assam. So, we, the people of Assam, must put pressure on the parents to ask their wards to come here for the probe. Until that happens, we can't join the dots."

Meanwhile, people close to Garg say the continuing row over the death is denying them the opportunity to grieve properly.

Writer-musician and old family friend Rahul Gautam Sharma told the BBC that "the mystery and the confusion surrounding the death has become very tiresome for us".

We want to know what really happened that day, and that's all. We want justice. When we get the answers, that's when the real grief begins for us.

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Source: BBC
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