Guwahati: A fast track court, set up for the speedy trial of Zubeen Garg death case, on Wednesday ordered the freezing of six bank accounts either being held by accused Siddharth Sharma or operated by him.Sharma, the manager of the singer, is one of the seven accused in the case. Zubeen died while swimming in the Singapore sea on Sept 19 last year, a day before he was scheduled to perform at the North East India Festival.Judge Sharmila Bhuyan said the chief investigating officer of the case has shown documents about siphoning off, routing, cash whitening huge bank deposits and transfer of money of the singer by Sharma against his known source of income. “Siddharth failed to substantiate his plea of denial by producing any income source document, income tax filing return to legitimise such (a) huge deposit in the bank account of self, brother, mother, (and) music management,” the judge said.The judge said the prosecution produced strong prima facie material on record that the deposits in the six bank accounts were proceedings of crime which Siddharth by way of siphoning, cash whitening, routed to the aforementioned account.The judge added the conduct, manner and time duration of Siddharth in investing the misappropriated siphoned off money from Zubeen in his project for his profit and wrongful gain made it sufficiently clear that “if at this present stage the aforementioned accounts are not attached, the next kins of the deceased victim will be prejudiced and suffer again… there is every possibilities for transferring, dissipation of the funds of the account and under such circumstances next kin of deceased victim will suffer.“After Zubeen’s death, a SIT constituted by the Assam Police’s CID conducted a probe and filed a chargesheet in Dec. The chargesheet named seven accused, including the North East India Festival organizer Shaymkanu Mahanta. Of them, four have been booked on charges of murder.
