Zubeen Garg fans held in Assam protest seeking justice after two accused get bail

Calls for justice for deceased singer-composer Zubeen Garg rang through the air during a protest outside the Assam secretariat on Tuesday, a day after an accused in the case walked out of jail.

Security personnel prevented around 100 persons outside the secretariat in Dispur from staging the protest, detained them, and packed them into buses from the site as they chanted "Jai Zubeen Da" and "Jai Aai Asom".

The protest was called by the Raijor Dal and its sister organisation after two of the accused — Amritprava Mahanta and Sandipan Garg — walked out of jail on October 13 and 19, respectively. Mahanta and Garg got bail from Gauhati High Court on October 9 and 16, leaving Zubeen’s fans and family aghast.

Zubeen, 52, died while swimming during a yacht trip in Singapore on September 19, 2025. The SIT constituted by the state government invoked murder charges against Mahanta, among others, in its chargesheet.

A senior Raijor Dal leader, Gyanashree Bora, who was detained, displayed a placard seeking reinvestigation of the death and a fresh chargesheet.

Bora said: “We planned a peaceful human chain protest, but the police did not allow us. We want to ask why this promptness was missing during the SIT probe in Singapore? We will not settle for anything less than justice.... The SIT should submit a fresh chargeheet and go to the Supreme Court,” Bora said.