The Goa Police have arrested Sonali Phogat's personal assistant Sudhir Sagwan and his associate Sukhwinder Wasi in connection with the 42-year-old Haryana BJP leader's death in Goa earlier this week. The duo, named as accused in the murder case, had allegedly laced Phogat's drink at a party before her death.
Sagwan was Phogat's personal assistant while Wasi is said to be his associate.
Police said on the basis of CCTV footage, it was seen that the two men were partying with the BJP leader at a club in Goa's Anjuna where they mixed some substance in her drink. "A video establishes that one of them forcefully made the victim consume a substance," Inspector General of Police Omvir Singh Bishnoi told reporters. The police said the duo confessed to the fact that they mixed something in her drink and made her consume it.
The accused duo had traveled with Phogat to Goa on August 22.
Phogat's death was initially said to be because of a heart attack. However, her family alleged foul play saying that Sagwan and Ws had brought her to Goa on "pretext of film shoot". An FIR was filed under Section 302 (murder) was registered at the Anjuna Police Station based on the complaint of Phogat's brother Rinku Dhaka, the police said.
Phogat's family's allegations
In his complaint, Dhaka alleged that she was raped and murdered by the two men and was being "blackmailed with an explicit video." He said that Phogat had spoken to her mother, sister and brother-in-law just before her death, but she sounded disturbed. She complained against her two colleagues as well, Dhaka alleged.
Her family gave their consent for the postmortem with the condition that the procedure should be captured in video footage.
The autopsy revealed that 42-year-old Phogat's body had "multiple blunt force injuries". "There are multiple blunt force injuries over the body. In view of the above, the manner of death is for the investigating officer to ascertain," NDTV quoted the post-mortem report. No sharp weapon injuries were found.
Autopsy report
The report quoted Goa's top cop saying that Sangwan and Singh had been asked to join the investigation. "If during the course of investigation anything comes on record about their involvement, then action will be taken as per law," he was quoted as saying, adding that the autopsy could not find a conclusive cause of death. He said the injuries could have been caused when she was being shifted into a cab to be taken to the hospital.
"The cause of death due to the best of my knowledge and belief is reserved pending chemical analysis. Histopathology and serological reports of the tissues preserved," the autopsy report said.