The Goa Police have taken two more persons into custody in connection with their investigation into the death of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sonali Phogat, ANI reported.
Phogat was brought dead to a hospital in North Goa on Monday. The police had initially said that she appeared to have suffered a heart attack.
However, on Wednesday, Phogat’s brother Rinku Dhaka filed a complaint accusing her personal assistant Sudhir Sangwan and his aide Sukhvinder Singh of killing her. The police filed a murder case on Thursday, and arrested Sangwan and Singh on the subsequent day.
On Saturday, Sangwan and Singh were sent to a 10-day police custody, ANI reported.
“On the basis of CCTV footage, it was seen that the accused Sudhir Sangwan and his associate Sukhvinder Singh were partying with the deceased at a club,” said Inspector General of Police Omvir Singh Bishnoi.
On Saturday, the police also arrested an alleged drug peddler named Dattaprasad Gaonkar, and accused him of supplying narcotics to Singh. The owner of a restaurant named Curlies in North Goa has also been detained.
“Drug peddler who had supplied drugs [to the accused person] has been arrested,” said Jaspal Singh, director general of police. “The investigation is going on well. Multiple teams are working. We will send one team to Haryana too.”
On Friday, Bishnoi had told the media that Sangwan and Singh confessed to having mixed an “obnoxious chemical” into a liquid and made Phogat drink it during a party. The incident is said to have taken place at Curlies restaurant between the night of August 22 and early hours of August 23.
Phogat’s brother Rinku Dhaka said on Friday that the family is satisfied with the manner in which the investigation is progressing, according to ANI. “We cremated my sister today, will look into the further process to get her justice now,” he said.
In his complaint, Dhaka said that the BJP leader had told the family that she would visit Chandigarh from her hometown of Hisar, but visiting Goa was not part of her plan. He alleged that Phogat’s associates planned her murder.
Dhaka claimed that Phogat had found out that Sangwan stole Rs 40 lakh from her Hisar home. Phogat was supposed to file a complaint against Sangwan after returning from her trip, Dhaka claimed in the complaint.
The BJP leader rose to fame with her videos on the TikTok app. She had joined the BJP in 2008.
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