PHOGAT MURDER: CHARGESHEET FILED AGAINST AIDES
PANAJI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has charged BJP leader and actress Sonali Phogat’s personal assistant Sudhir Sangwan and his assistant Sukhwider Singh with her murder. According to the CBI chargesheet, Sangwan and Singh have been charged under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code read with section 34 (common intention) and 36 [effect (in this case death) caused partly by act and partly by omission].
“The charge sheet was filed on Monday evening before the Judicial Magistrate at Mapusa in North Goa by the CBI. The matter has been posted for hearing on December 5,” an official of the district court revealed.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has charged BJP leader and actress Sonali Phogat’s personal assistant Sudhir Sangwan and his assistant Sukhwider Singh with her murder. According to the CBI chargesheet, Sangwan and Singh have been charged under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code read with section 34 (common intention) and 36 [effect (in this case death) caused partly by act and partly by omission].
“The charge sheet was filed on Monday evening before the Judicial Magistrate at Mapusa in North Goa by the CBI. The matter has been posted for hearing on December 5,” an official of the District Court revealed.
The CBI took over the probe from the Goa Police in early September after the state government acceded to demands from her family and wrote to the Union government, seeking that the case be transferred to the investigating agency.
The BJP leader was brought dead to the St Anthony’s Hospital at Anjuna in the wee hours of August 23 after she spent the previous night at the Curlies’ nightclub, where she was allegedly drugged with methamphetamine (MDMA) by Sangwan and Singh, the two persons who accompanied her to the club.
While the case was initially registered as an unnatural death and initially reported as a heart attack, it was upgraded to murder after the post mortem report revealed several blunt injuries all over her body. A subsequent investigation also revealed that Sangwan had laced Phogat’s drink with MDMA causing her to be visibly unstable and after spending nearly two hours in the toilet of the club where she was vomiting continuously, she was seen staggering out of the place at around 4:30 am.
Sangwan and Singh were arrested the day after her death and are currently in judicial custody. The Goa Police that initially investigated the case had arrested three others besides Sangwan and Singh in connection with the murder.
Edwin Nunes, owner of the Curlies nightclub, Dattaprasad Gaonkar, bell boy at the Grand Leoney Resort where Phogat and her team were staying, who is accused of supplying methamphetamine to the duo and Rama Mandrekar, who Gaonkar procured the amphetamine from, have been arrested and booked under the NDPS Act.