Zubeen Garg: The Voice That Refused to Die

A Murder Chargesheet, a Fractured State, and the Long Road to Justice

ARABINDA RABHA

Guwahati, Assam -13 December 2025: Three months and one day after Zubeen Garg slipped beneath the calm waters off Singapore’s Lazarus Island, the Assam Police Special Investigation Team yesterday carried three steel trunks into the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s courtroom in Guwahati.

Inside lay what is almost certainly the thickest chargesheet ever filed in a single-victim murder case in India: 2,500 pages of core document, 9,800 pages of annexures, 312 witness statements, 1,117 digital exhibits, 43 forensic reports, and financial trails amounting to ₹1.18 crore in suspicious transactions that the SIT claims were the motive for a cold-blooded killing.

At 11:29 a.m. on 12 December 2025, the court formally took cognisance of CID Case No. 18/2025. Seven people -once among the singer’s closest confidants – now stand accused of extinguishing the brightest cultural flame the Northeast has ever produced.

The Man Who Sang in Forty Tongues

Zubeen Garg was never merely a singer. He was a phenomenon that defied every boundary India throws at its artists.

Born Jubin Borthakur on 18 November 1972 in Jorhat (though raised in Tura, Meghalaya), he released his first Assamese album Anamika in 1992 while still in his teens. By the time he turned thirty, he had recorded in Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Bhojpuri, Nepali, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Karbi, Mising, Goalpariya, Tiwa, Deori, Dimasa, Kokborok, Bodo, Khasi, Garo, Hmar, Mizo, Nagamese, Rajbongshi, and even Sinhala. Industry estimates place his lifetime output between 36,000 and 42,000 songs – a figure that dwarfs even the most prolific Bollywood playback legends.

In Bollywood he gave the nation “Ya Ali” (Gangster, 2006), a qawwali-rock fusion that still trends on streaming platforms every Eid. In Assam he gave generations their wedding songs, their protest anthems, their flood-relief hymns. He acted in 37 films, directed four, produced three, and turned the annual Rongali Bihu stages into carnivals that drew half a million people. Prime Ministers quoted his lyrics; schoolchildren in remote hill districts learned the Roman script just to sing his English choruses.

He was also, by all accounts, a difficult man to exploit. Garg controlled his own finances, kept his contracts tight, and repeatedly refused to sign away master rights. Friends say that in the last three years of his life he had begun quietly winding down live performances to focus on a long-dreamed film on the Ahom general Lachit Borphukan. “He told me, ‘I have sung enough for others. Now I will tell our own story on my own terms,’” actor-director Kenny Basumatary recalls.

Those terms, the SIT now alleges, cost him his life.

The Singapore Timeline: From Celebration to Conspiracy

Zubeen Garg landed in Singapore on 17 September 2025 as the star attraction and official cultural ambassador of the 4th North East India Festival, organised by the Assam Association Singapore in partnership with Guwahati-based event manager Shyamkanu Mahanta.

19 September schedule, according to the chargesheet:

• 10:00 a.m. – Press conference at Marina Bay Sands
• 2:30 p.m. – Private yacht party hosted by Mahanta for “VIP sponsors”
• 4:15 p.m. – Garg, an impromptu swim with four members of his entourage off Lazarus Island
• 4:37 p.m. – Last confirmed sighting by an independent tourist’s GoPro footage
• 5:12 p.m. – Distress call from the yacht; Singapore Marine Police recover an unconscious Garg
• 6:05 p.m. – Pronounced dead at Singapore General Hospital

Singapore authorities issued an open verdict of “death by submersion secondary to acute medical episode,” noting no external injuries and no alcohol or drugs in initial toxicology.

That should have been the end of the story.

It was only the beginning…….

The Assam Revolt and the Birth of the SIT

Within 48 hours, over sixty FIRs were lodged across Assam. Social media erupted with the hashtag #JusticeForZubeenGarg. On 21 September, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma addressed the state assembly: “This is not an accident. This is plain and simple murder.” The statement stunned Singapore officials but electrified Assam.

Under unprecedented public pressure, the government notified a nine-member Special Investigation Team headed by 1989-batch IPS officer Munna Prasad Gupta on 22 September. The SIT was granted extraordinary powers: direct access to the CM’s office, its own forensic cell, and permission to travel abroad without the usual Union Home Ministry clearance delays.

The Chargesheet: Seven Accused, One Motive

After 85 days, 14 visits to Singapore, 312 witness statements (including 27 recorded via video conferencing from Singapore, Dubai, London and Toronto), and analysis of 1.18 crore in bank transactions, the SIT has named:

Charged with Murder (BNS Section 103 r/w Section 3(5) – common intention)

1. Shyamkanu Mahanta, 48 – NEIF organiser; alleged mastermind who lured Garg onto the yacht
2. Siddharth Sharma, 41 – Personal manager since 2014; accused of systematic embezzlement
3. Shekhar Jyoti Goswami, 39 – Long-time bandmate and music arranger
4. Amritprava Mahanta, 34 – Upcoming singer promoted heavily by Garg

Charged with Culpable Homicide Not Amounting to Murder (BNS Section 105) 5. Sandipan Garg, 44 – Zubeen’s first cousin and suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police; accompanied the singer to Singapore

Charged with Criminal Conspiracy & Criminal Breach of Trust (BNS Sections 61(2) & 316) 6. Nandeswar Bora, 38 – Personal Security Officer 7. Paresh Baishya, 40 – Personal Security Officer

The SIT claims the conspiracy was hatched over 18 months, triggered by Garg’s discovery that ₹1.18 crore had been siphoned from his accounts through a web of shell companies and fake invoices for non-existent foreign tours. When Garg threatened police complaints and public exposure, the accused allegedly decided elimination was safer than restitution.

The actual act, according to the chargesheet, was chillingly simple: during the swim, Garg was held underwater until he lost consciousness. The absence of defensive wounds is explained by the presence of his trusted cousin and bodyguards – people he would never suspect.

Political Firestorm

The case has cleaved Assam’s polity.

The ruling BJP has turned it into a morality play on governance and swift justice. The Chief Minister has promised to move the Gauhati High Court for a fast-track court and the appointment of a special public prosecutor. Yesterday he told reporters, “We have built a case that can secure conviction even without a single document from Singapore. The evidence in Assam is overwhelming.”

The Opposition – Congress, AJP, and Raijor Dal – smells diversion. “If the Chief Minister was so certain it was murder, why did it take public outrage to form an SIT?” asks Jorhat MP Gaurav Gogoi. Leader of Opposition Debabrata Saikia has demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe, alleging that some accused enjoy “proximity to the corridors of power.”

The Next Movement

The chargesheet now moves to the Court of Sessions. Legal experts expect:

• Cognisance and framing of charges by February 2026
• Possible fast-track designation by March
• Trial commencement by mid-2026 if the High Court agrees

The All Assam Lawyers’ Association has already passed a resolution urging its 18,000 members not to appear for any of the seven accused – an unprecedented moral boycott in the state’s legal history.

The Voice That Still Sings

Last night, thousands gathered spontaneously on the banks of the Brahmaputra at Machkhowa for a candlelight vigil. Mobile phones lit the darkness as speakers played “Pakhi Meli…….” – the song Zubeen wrote after the 2022 floods that left a million homeless.

His widow, Garima Saikia Garg, stood silent throughout, clutching the harmonium he gifted her on their tenth anniversary. When the final note faded, she spoke only eight words to the sea of mourners:

“He trusted them with his life. Now trust the law with his death.”

In recording studios across the state, mixing engineers report an inexplicable surge in requests for Zubeen’s unreleased tracks. Producers say at least twelve posthumous albums are already in the pipeline.

The man may be gone, but the voice – raw, defiant, eternally young – refuses to drown. For Assam, the trial that begins now is about more than seven accused in the dock. It is about whether a state that worshipped an artist in life can secure justice for him in death.

The symphony has lost its conductor. The audience is still waiting for the final, redeeming chord. Justice for Zubeen Garg has only just begun.

13-12-2025

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