Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi has urged external affairs minister S. Jaishankar to issue a statement on the death of singer-composer Zubeen Garg in Singapore, where he had gone to attend an event “organised by the ministry of external affairs”.
Gogoi, the deputy leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha and the Assam PCC president, requested in a letter to Jaishankar on December 4. The Assam PCC shared the letter with the media on Saturday, spotlighting the ministry’s role in the festival.
Till now, the focus has largely been on the role of the event organiser, Shyamkanu Mahanta, who is in judicial custody after being arrested by the police SIT probing Zubeen’s death.
The letter was shared on a day the SIT said it would file the chargesheet in the case on December 12.
Gogoi’s letter flagged the November 25 statement of Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in the Assembly that Garg’s death “was a murder”, allegedly “planned and executed by a group of individuals, with multiple accused now being booked”.
Gogoi pointed out that one of the accused in the ongoing police investigation was “directly associated” with the organisation of the North East India Festival in Singapore.
“The person ran an organisation which, over the past several years, has received substantial payments amounting to several lakhs of rupees from the ministry of external affairs for organising festivals and events. The relationship between the ministry of external affairs and a person who is one of the accused in a murder as claimed by the chief minister of Assam is deeply troubling,” the letter said without naming the person.
The letter also flagged media reports that the ministry “continued to organise the festival on September 19” even after the death of one of the biggest icons of Northeast India, instead of cancelling or postponing the event.
“I am bringing this to your attention and requesting the ministry to issue a statement regarding the claim of the chief minister of Assam and also clarify the association between senior leadership of ministry of external affairs and one of the accused in the case,” Gogoi wrote.
The letter added: “Given that the event was an official Government of India engagement, coordinated under the auspices of the ministry of external affairs and the High Commission of India, it is imperative that the public and the family of late Zubeen Garg receive truth and justice.”
The letter was written a day after Gogoi urged the Centre to confer the Bharat Ratna posthumously on Zubeen.
This is the second time this week that Gogoi has questioned the ministry’s role vis-a-vis the festival. “Zubeen was invited to and attended a function organised by the ministry of external affairs and the High Commission of Singapore. And it was there that he met with a mysterious death,” Gogoi had said in the Lok Sabha while referring to Sarma’s description of Zubeen’s death as a murder.
