Engineer, Beauty Pageant Participant: All About Zubeen Garg's Cop Cousin

Zubeen Garg's cousin and Deputy Superintendent of Police Sandipan Garg, who has been arrested in connection with the singer's death in Singapore, has an engineering degree and had also participated in a beauty pageant. The cousins were close and had a shared interest in music, police sources said.

Sandipan Garg, who is from the Jorhat district in Assam, studied civil engineering at the North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology (NERIST) in Arunachal Pradesh's Nirjuli.

Sandipan cracked the Assam Public Service Commission and became an Assam Police Service (APS) officer in the 2021-22 batch. He was posted as a deputy superintendent of police in the Boko-Chaygaon co-district and has also served in the Nagaon district.

The sources said he was known to be soft-spoken and was close to Zubeen. He was a sportsman and also shared the singer's interest in music.

In 2019, he had participated in the Mr Northeast pageant and was also involved in modelling and acting projects.

Singapore Visit

Sandipan had gone to Singapore on the invitation of Zubeen, the sources said, adding that it was his first foreign trip.

After Zubeen's death on September 19, Sandipan had asked the singer's manager, Siddhartha Sharma, to hand over all of his belongings to him so that he could take them back to Assam. Sharma, however, refused to give him the singer's phone.

All the other items, including Zubeen's trolley bags, were brought from Singapore to Assam by Sandipan, the sources added.

Arrest

After being interrogated for five days, Sandipan was arrested in connection with Zubeen's death. His arrest is the fifth in the case, and all of the accused have been charged with murder, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, criminal conspiracy, and causing death by negligence.

Zubeen had died in Singapore, where he had gone to perform at the North East India Festival. The 52-year-old had gone for a swim during a yacht trip and was found floating face down in the water.

Sandipan was with Zubeen on the yacht.

He was presented before a court on Wednesday and sent to police custody for seven days.

In a recent Facebook post, Sandipan said he has cooperated fully with the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that is probing Zubeen's death.

Apart from Sandipan and manager Siddhartha Sharma, the others who have been arrested are North East Indian Festival manager Shyamkanu Mahanta, Shekhar Jyoti Goswami, and co-singer Amritprava Mahanta.