Singapore, 2 Oct

Singer-musician Zubeen Garg died due to drowning while swimming off a Singapore island and not while scuba diving as reported earlier, media reports said Thursday.

Assam-based Garg, who was in Singapore for the 60th year of India Singapore Diplomatic Relations and to celebrate India ASEAN Year of Tourism, North East India Festival, died on 19 September.

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) said they have extended a copy of the autopsy report, along with its preliminary findings on Garg’s death, to the High Commission of India, upon its request, The Straits Times newspaper reported.

The Indian High Commission says it has received the report.

According to a source, the report says that Garg died due to drowning. The SPF had earlier ruled out foul play in the death of the 52-year-old singer.

“In the case of Zubeen Garg, a coroner’s inquiry could possibly shed light on the sequence of events leading up to his drowning,” the Singapore broadsheet quoted Ng Kai Ling, associate director at LIMN Law Corporation here, as saying.

According to the Singapore daily, Ng also said that there is no statutory definition for the term “foul play”, but SPF’s initial statement could be understood to mean that they do not suspect that Garg was murdered or died as a result of some criminal violence.

On 19 September, Garg was at St John's Island, off Singapore, from where he was pulled out of the water unconscious and rushed to Singapore General Hospital. But died that same day.

According to earlier media reports, the iconic singer was with more than a dozen people on an unnamed yacht on 19 September when tragedy struck.

A video posted on X the next day showed him jumping into the water for a swim while wearing a life vest.

But according to media reports, a person who posted the video, which has since garnered over 6,00,000 views, said Garg took off his life jacket minutes later and jumped into the water again.

The SPF had advised members of the public in Singapore not to share any videos or images related to Garg’s death.

According to various media reports, Garg’s death certificate, issued by a Singapore hospital, lists the cause of death as drowning.

Meanwhile, Garg’s manager Siddhartha Sharma and festival chief organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta were arrested from Delhi on Wednesday in connection with the singer’s death, the Assam Police said. They were taken to Guwahati, where the Kamrup Chief Judicial Magistrate remanded them to 14-day police custody.

The duo was booked under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, criminal conspiracy and causing death by negligence, a senior police officer said.

Meanwhile, Zubeen's wife Garima Saikia Garg, who is in Jorhat for the 13th day rituals of 'Mangolik Karya' of the deceased singer, told reporters that she was satisfied that the duo had been brought to Assam as “we are all waiting to know what happened to him in his last moments.”

Garima said she has full faith in the investigating team and hoped that they would soon know what exactly happened in Singapore.

The Assam government had constituted a 10-member SIT to investigate the singer's death in Singapore.