PANAJI
After finally registering a murder case, the red-faced Goa Police has now admitted that BJP leader and actress Sonali Phogat was forced to consume obnoxious drinks at a night party, hours before she died en route to a private hospital in Anjuna.
Phogat’s personal assistant Sudhir Sangwan and her friend Sukhwinder Singh are in custody on charges of murder under section 302 and common intention under section 34 of the Indian Penal Code.
A day after the Goa Medical College and Hospital’s autopsy report ascertained Phogat had ‘multiple blunt injuries’ with the grieving family insisting she was drugged and murdered by the two men, the Goa Police took a complete U-turn from their initial inquiry of unnatural death. The exact cause of death will be revealed after the forensic tests of the viscera samples.
At a press conference on Friday, Inspector General of Police Omvir Singh quoted the alleged accused confession about drugging the actor-politician. “We confronted the two accused with the CCTV footage of Curlies (beach shack restaurant) where Sangwan and Singh were partying with Phogat. They later forced her into drinking some substance. Both confessed they intentionally intoxicated her with an obnoxious chemical,” he said.
The victim was not clear to the senses after her first drink, despite which her associates forced her to have a second drink.
Their initial interrogation further revealed that around 4:30 am when Phogat was unable to handle herself, they accosted her to the washroom and re-emerge only two hours later. “There is no explanation as to why they come out of the toilet so late. These revelations should come out during their custodial interrogation,” the IGP said. It was during this time that Phogat might have sustained injuries which are identified as 'multiple blunt injuries' in the post-mortem report, Singh added.
From where the drugs were sourced and if the accused are in possession of an additional quantity of drugs will also be probed. Asked about the type of drugs they laced her drink with, the IGP said it was synthetic (party drugs).
The department, facing criticism from the Phogat family and Goa’s Opposition parties for initially concluding the case as unnatural death, has justified that their inquiry under section 174 CrPC was based on hospital reports. The senior officer claimed that Phogat's body had no visible injuries on physical examination owing to which doctors suspected it was a case of a heart attack.
"Based on a complaint from the deceased's brother, we conducted inspections of the crime site, places she visited, and recorded statements of witnesses," Singh said, adding that two other women who were found with the accused and seen cutting a cake at the party, are also undergoing questioning.
The taxi drivers who ferried the victim and her alleged killers from Curlies to the resort and the hospital will also be quizzed as a part of the ongoing probe.
A group from Mumbai was expected to join the Haryana group, which will also be a part of the probe now. It is learnt that the two accused had travelled to Goa with Phogat for a video shooting.
