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Sonali Phogat was forcibly drugged with ‘obnoxious chemical’ prior to death: Goa police
A senior Goa police official said the CCTV footage from Curlies’ shack in Anjuna showed Phogat partying with her manager Sudhir Sangwan and his associate Sukhwinder Singh and in the video, “it is seen that one of the accused is forcefully making the deceased drink some substance.”
: The two male associates of BJP leader and actress Sonali Phogat forcibly made her drink a liquid mixed with some ‘obnoxious chemical’ following which she was visibly unstable, a senior Goa police official has said, adding the duo has confessed to have “intentionally” given the drink to her.
Inspector General of Police Omvir Singh Bishnoi, while addressing the media, said the CCTV footage from Curlies’ shack in Anjuna showed Phogat partying with her manager Sudhir Sangwan and his associate Sukhwinder Singh.
In the video, “it is seen that one of the accused is forcefully making the deceased drink some substance,” Bishnoi said.
Sudhir and Sukhwinder were formally arrested on Friday morning and were taken for a medical check-up. They will be produced before the magistrate on Saturday, Bishnoi said.
He said that on the complaint filed by the deceased’s brother, a murder case was registered on Thursday. The brother had also alleged that she was being harassed by Sudhir and Sukhwinder for a long time now.
“When they were confronted, Sudhir and Sukhwinder confessed that they had intentionally given the accused some obnoxious chemical after which the victim wasn’t herself and needed to be taken care of. At around 4:30 pm when she could no longer hold it together, the victim was taken to the bathroom,” Bishnoi said.
“They confessed that a synthetic drug was mixed in the drink but we cannot say the nature of the drug until the report of the chemical analysis is received,” he said.
The police also suspected an “economic interest” behind the crime.
“At the moment, we do not have any evidence whether this was a case of long running harassment. But behind every crime there always likely to be some economic interest and I feel that in this crime too, there may be some economic interest,” Bishnoi added.
Giving more details, the police officer said that Phogat spent around two hours in the bathroom, and the accused are yet to reveal what happened during those two hours.
“In the CCTV camera footage that is available with the police there were a lot of people partying and we have to establish who they were. There were many people in the Curlies shack. We have recorded the statement of the taxi driver who spoke about what state she was in when she was taken from Curlies to the hotel,” he added.
Talking about the nature of the blunt injuries on Phogat’s body, Bishnoi said the injuries were minor and not responsible for the death.
“These are not fatal injuries. They are not severe enough to cause the death of a person. They are very minor injuries. And we asked the accused about it and he said that they are abrasion marks when they were trying to lift her up from the toilet,” Bishnoi said.
Police said that no sooner they information about the death of Sonali Phogat the police quickly began an investigation into the case as an unnatural death and based
Meanwhile, Phogat’s family said that they were now satisfied with the progress of the investigation.
Phogat was rushed to the St Anthony’s Hospital in Anjuna in an unconscious state on Tuesday where she was declared as having succumbed to a probable heart attack. The hospital informed the police who registered a case of unnatural death.
Phogat and her team were in Goa to reportedly produce a video and were to be joined by another group from Mumbai.
