GUWAHATI: The Gauhati high court on Friday granted bail to singer Amritprabha Mahanta, an accused in the Zubeen Garg death case, special public prosecutor Ziaul Kamar said.Justice Pranjal Das granted bail to Mahanta against a bond of Rs 50,000 and two sureties of the same amount, Kamar told reporters.“The honourable judge has read the operative part. We don’t know the grounds for the grant of bail yet,” he said after the order, news agency PTI reported.Kamar said the hearing had been lengthy, with the prosecution presenting its arguments over four to five days.“The court thought that it was a fit case for bail, and hence allowed it. We did our best,” he said.Kamar said that, as the public prosecutor, he could not challenge the order but would write to the government and await further directions.Asked when Mahanta would be released from prison, Kamar said the bail order had to be submitted to the trial court. She would be able to walk out after the necessary formalities were completed.Mahanta is currently lodged at Haflong jail along with another accused and Garg’s co-band member, Shekhar Jyoti Goswami. The other accused are lodged at Tamulpur jail, PTI reported.Garg, a celebrated singer-songwriter, died under mysterious circumstances in Singapore on September 19 last year while swimming in the sea.He was in the country to attend the fourth edition of the North East India Festival (NEIF).Besides Mahanta and Goswami, the accused in the case include NEIF chief organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta, the singer’s manager Siddharth Sharma, his cousin and since-suspended Assam Police DSP Sandipan Garg, and personal security officers Nandeswar Bora and Prabin Baishya.The two PSOs were granted bail in a disproportionate assets case in September but remain in jail in connection with the singer’s death.A Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the Assam Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigated Garg’s death after more than 60 FIRs were lodged across the state.The SIT filed its chargesheet before a local court in December, naming all seven accused. Four of them are facing murder charges. An exclusive special fast-track sessions court in Guwahati is hearing the case.Singapore Police, which conducted a separate investigation, concluded that there was no evidence of foul play, PTI reported.A Coroner’s Court in Singapore also said Garg was severely intoxicated and drowned off Lazarus Island after declining a life jacket.Authorities in Assam, however, maintained that the findings of the Singapore investigation would not affect the case in the state.Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the state Assembly in November that Garg’s death was a case of “plain and simple murder”.(With agency inputs)
