By Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty
New Delhi: On September 25, facing massive public pressure due to the sudden demise of celebrated singer and youth icon Zubeen Garg, the Himanta Biswa Sarma-led Assam government had announced the formation of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the circumstances leading to his death by drowning in Singapore on September 19.
If the outcome of the investigation by this SIT of the Assam police will be closely monitored in the local media owing to a huge public clamour seeking ‘justice’ for Garg, the report of yet another SIT of the home department was in the state’s news-scape till early this month before disappearing abruptly.
The formation of that SIT was announced to the local media by chief minister Sarma in Guwahati on February 17, though not before a case – and a politically vicious one at that – was built for it and against a top leader of his BJP’s primary opponent in the state, the Congress.
Sarma had then questioned a visit to the Pakistan high commission way back in 2015 by Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi, who is also the deputy leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, and suggested that his wife, UK-born Elizabeth Colburn Gogoi, had ‘questionable’ links to the Pakistani establishment due to her employment with an international NGO in that country.
Colburn had worked for some time in Pakistan for the NGO under a noted climate change expert from that country, Ali Tauqeer Sheikh.
This NGO – as per a 2016 UK filing – was managed by an ‘alliance’ of organisations that included Sheikh’s ‘LEAD Pakistan’ organisation. Sarma claimed this organisation is a “front” for the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Thus, Colburn too was insinuated as having links with the spy agency.
In the run-up to the formation of that four-member SIT by the Assam police, which reports to Sarma as he is the state home minister too, the chief minister went to the extent of saying that Gogoi could have likely compromised national security.
The chief minister later gave a date to reporters for the submission of that SIT report – September 10. He said, “Sob fadil hobo (all will be revealed)” against Gogoi as he would provide concrete “proof” by then.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
