Goa Police arrests restaurant owner and drug peddler in Sonali Phogat case

Panaji: Goa Police on Saturday arrested a restaurant owner and a drug peddler in connection with the alleged murder of Haryana-based BJP leader Sonali Phogat, taking the number of arrests in the case to four.

Dattaprasad Gaonkar, a peddler, had allegedly provided drugs to Phogat's two associates who fed them to her, police said.

Edwin Nunes, the other person arrested on Saturday, is the owner of the Curlies restaurant in North Goa district where Phogat and her associates partied and where she was allegedly drugged hours before her death.

Her associates Sudhir Sagwan and Sukhwinder Singh, arrested earlier, allegedly told police that they had procured drugs from Gaonkar, the official said.

Gaonkar and Nunes were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, he added.

Phogat, a former TikTok star and contestant on the reality show Big Boss, died on August 23, a day after arrival in Goa.

On the face of it, Gaonkar sold drugs to Sagwan and Singh who made Phogat consume them during the party at Curlies restaurant on the intervening night of August 22 and 23, the police official said.

Nunes was arrested as the incident of drugging took place at his restaurant, he added.

On Friday, police had said that Sagwan and Singh allegedly mixed some "obnoxious substance" in water and forced Phogat to drink it.

Phogat was brought dead to St Anthony Hospital at Anjuna in North Goa district on August 23 morning from the hotel where she was staying.

The doctors said she had had a heart attack, but her brother alleged that Sagwan and Singh, who had arrived in Goa with her, had played a role in her death.

The duo were detained and a First Information Report for murder was registered after the autopsy report said that there were multiple "blunt force injuries" on her body though it reserved opinion on the cause of death pending chemical analysis.

Police had said the "economic interest" could be a motive behind her killing.

A local court on Saturday remanded Sagwan and Singh in police custody for ten days.

Nunes had told PTI earlier that Phogat had visited his restaurant `like any other customer' but he had not met her.

Opposition Congress, meanwhile, demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged murder, saying the case could be hushed up otherwise.

“Many politicians said her death was due to a heart attack. But finally it has been revealed as murder. There is more to this murder than meets the eye and every angle needs to be investigated. These kinds of cases need to be investigated by the CBI," Leader of Opposition in Goa Assembly Michael Lobo told PTI.