Explained: A year after Zubeen Garg’s death, what would justice look like?

Some days are just weekdays and weekends. Others become an epoch in our living memories. September 19, 2025, remains a date forever etched into the psyche of Northeast India — referred to across Assam as the day the region lost something it never imagined living without.

In living rooms, teashops and university corridors, asking “Where were you the day Zubeen Garg died?” has become a tragic cultural touchstone.

On that afternoon, an unbelievable stillness blanketed the region. Zubeen Garg — the rebellious, restless and deeply beloved cultural colossus — was declared dead in Singapore at the age of 52.

This explainer is not about who Zubeen was for all of us, his mind-boggling talent, his humility, or even his legacy. It asks a simpler question: How realistic does justice for Zubeen actually look?

The legal battle: accidental drowning versus criminal conspiracy

The fundamental legal dispute in the Zubeen Garg case is not over the physical cause of death. Both the Singapore Police Force and the Assam prosecution agree that Garg died by drowning.

The conflict is over what happened before he entered the water, and whether those circumstances amounted to criminal conduct — including the alleged conspiracy to cause his death.

On March 25, 2026, Singapore State Coroner Adam Nakhoda ruled Garg’s death an accidental drowning and found no evidence of foul play. The Singapore Police Force subsequently concluded its investigation, likewise saying there was no evidence of foul play.

According to the Singapore Police Force, Garg had initially worn a life jacket while swimming but later removed it. When he entered the water for a second time, he swam alone and away from the yacht without a life jacket, despite being offered one before entering the water. 

Toxicology found an ethanol concentration of 333mg per 100ml of blood, a level capable of causing severe intoxication, impaired coordination and impaired reflexes in someone not habituated to ethanol.

The distinction between the Singapore proceedings and the Assam case is important. A coroner’s inquiry is a fact-finding process intended to establish the cause and circumstances of a death. It is not a criminal trial determining guilt or innocence for offences that may subsequently be alleged elsewhere.

That left room for Indian investigators to pursue a different legal theory: not that Garg was necessarily physically forced into the water, but that the circumstances leading to his drowning were deliberately created or recklessly allowed by people who allegedly had reason to want him dead.

In Assam, more than 60 FIRs were registered following Garg’s death, after which the investigation was consolidated under a Special Investigation Team led by the Criminal Investigation Department.

In May 2026, a Special Fast-Track Court in Guwahati framed charges against all seven accused. Four people: North East India Festival organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta, Garg’s manager Siddharth Sharma, bandmate Shekhar Jyoti Goswami and singer Amritprabha Mahanta, were charged with murder and criminal conspiracy.

The remaining accused face other charges, including culpable homicide not amounting to murder and criminal breach of trust. All seven pleaded not guilty.

The court said there was “strong prima facie material” to proceed with the case. That is an important threshold, but it is not a finding of guilt.

The prosecution case is substantially circumstantial and rests on several strands of evidence.

One concerns Garg’s health and the alleged duty of care owed to him. Prosecutors have alleged that Sharma knew about Garg’s medical vulnerabilities and restrictions on alcohol and swimming. The prosecution further alleges that alcohol was supplied to Garg before and during the yacht trip and that he was allowed or encouraged to enter the water while intoxicated.

The second concerns alleged financial disputes. The SIT has alleged irregularities involving Garg’s performance earnings and has relied on evidence suggesting that Garg intended to audit his accounts after returning from Singapore. The prosecution argues that these disputes provide a possible motive.

The third concerns alleged destruction or deletion of evidence. Prosecutors have alleged that relevant information and documents were deleted from Sharma’s phone and subsequently retrieved by investigators.

All of these remain allegations. The defence has argued that Sharma was Garg’s manager, not his personal custodian, and that the financial allegations are separate from the circumstances of the death.

The accused have denied involvement in any conspiracy and have relied heavily on the Singapore finding that Garg’s death was accidental.

That is where the prosecution faces its central legal hurdle.

Bad judgment, negligence or a financial dispute does not automatically amount to murder. Where a prosecution relies substantially on circumstantial evidence, the circumstances must form a complete chain that is consistent with guilt and excludes reasonable hypotheses consistent with innocence.

The absence of evidence that Garg was physically pushed does not, by itself, end the Assam prosecution’s case. But neither does the existence of financial disputes or alleged negligence establish murder.

If the prosecution’s theory is that the accused conspired to cause Garg’s death, it must ultimately prove the alleged criminal agreement and the accused persons’ criminal responsibility beyond reasonable doubt.

The Gauhati High Court has found prima facie material against the accused while considering bail petitions. That means the case is sufficient to proceed at this stage; it is not equivalent to the much higher standard required for conviction.

Politics nokoriba bandhu? Hardly

The legal proceedings have not unfolded in a vacuum.

From the moment Garg’s mortal remains arrived at Guwahati airport, when thousands of distraught fans breached security barricades, his death became a volatile socio-political flashpoint.

There is an obvious irony in the way his memory entered political discourse: the phrase “Politics nokoriba bandhu” — “Don’t play politics, my friend” — became inseparable from the public conversation around his death.

The irony is worth qualifying. Garg’s song itself emerged from a political context and was associated with his opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Bill. He was not an apolitical figure. But his death quickly became a political symbol far beyond the circumstances of the original song.

Much of the public mourning was peaceful, but the demand for justice also produced episodes of violence. A crowd attempted to storm the residence of Garg’s manager Siddharth Sharma in Guwahati in September 2025, while police vehicles were pelted with stones.

In October, a mob attacked the convoy carrying five accused to Baksa District Jail; police vehicles were set on fire and mobile internet services were suspended in the district amid the unrest.

The political contest became particularly pronounced as the 2026 Assembly election approached.

The Congress made “Justice for Zubeen Garg within 100 days” one of its five election guarantees.

Congress leaders subsequently repeated the promise during the campaign. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma criticised the pledge, arguing that the case was already before the courts and that the government’s responsibility was to investigate and file the chargesheet rather than determine the verdict.

The election result, however, cannot by itself tell us how voters assessed the Zubeen case. The BJP won 82 of Assam’s 126 Assembly seats and returned to power, but it would be speculative to conclude from that result alone that Zubeen-related politics had no electoral effect.

What can be said is that “Justice for Zubeen” became a major emotional and political phrase during the campaign. The ruling establishment pointed to the SIT investigation, arrests and fast-track proceedings as evidence of action. The opposition questioned aspects of the government’s handling of the case and used the issue to challenge the administration.

That political contest has created another danger: the possibility that the public comes to define justice as synonymous with a particular verdict.

A murder conviction may satisfy the strongest public demand for accountability. But a court cannot convict because a death was shocking, because public anger is intense, or because a particular outcome has become politically desirable. It has to decide whether the evidence satisfies the statutory requirements of the offences charged.

What happens now?

The trial is already well into its evidentiary phase. The prosecution has listed 394 witnesses. By August, reports indicated that nearly 100 had been examined, while several witnesses based in Singapore remained to testify.

In September, Singapore-based Assamese residents who were present at the yacht gathering began appearing before the fast-track court, making their testimony potentially significant to the reconstruction of Garg’s final hours.

The Supreme Court has also become involved in ensuring that the proceedings move forward. In August, while hearing Shyamkanu Mahanta’s bail plea, the court was told that the trial was proceeding on a day-to-day basis and that key Singapore-based witnesses would be examined shortly.

The Supreme Court deferred the bail hearing and directed the Assam prosecution to be diligent in pursuing the case.

Separately, the Supreme Court dismissed Siddharth Sharma’s plea seeking transfer of the trial outside Assam, meaning the proceedings will continue in the state.

None of this amounts to judicial endorsement of the prosecution’s murder theory. The trial remains the place where the evidence must ultimately be tested.

That is perhaps the most uncomfortable reality for anyone asking whether justice for Zubeen is realistic.

If the prosecution cannot establish the mental element required for murder, the murder charges cannot simply be sustained because the public expects them to be. The court will have to determine what, if anything, the evidence establishes in relation to the other offences charged.

The possible outcome therefore cannot responsibly be reduced to “murder conviction or no justice”. The evidence could support some offences but not others; it could fail to establish criminal liability altogether; or it could lead to convictions on charges different from the one that has dominated public discourse.

For a public emotionally invested in the word “murder”, such distinctions may feel unsatisfying. But they are precisely the distinctions criminal courts are required to make.

While the courtrooms parse witness testimony and legal definitions, Zubeen Garg’s cultural footprint remains much harder to quantify — and much harder to erase.

His songs continue to dominate public spaces, community stages and local broadcasts across the Northeast. His final film, Roi Roi Binale, was released posthumously on October 31, 2025, just 42 days after his death, drawing huge crowds across Assam.

A year after his death, then, the question of justice remains unresolved.

But perhaps the clearest measure of what happens next is also the simplest: can the prosecution prove its case without asking the court to substitute public grief for evidence?

That is the question the trial must answer.

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