Haryana BJP leader and actress Sonali Phogat, died in Goa early on Tuesday. (Source: PR handout)The family of BJP leader and actress Sonali Phogat, who was allegedly murdered in Goa on Tuesday, performed her last rites in Haryana’s Hisar on Friday noon.
Phogat’s brother Rinku and brother-in-law Aman Punia took her body from Goa to Hisar on Thursday evening. On Friday morning, members of the public paid their last respects to the deceased actress at her farmhouse. The family later took her body to the cremation ground at Rishi Nagar to perform the last rites.
Phogat is survived by her daughter Yashodhara who lit the funeral pyre on Friday in the presence of other family members. The BJP leader’s husband had passed away a few years ago. A large number of people turned up to pay their last respects to the actress. Haryana minister Kamal Gupta, who is the MLA from Hisar, was also present, besides BJP leader Kuldeep Bishnoi.
Sonali Phogat was declared dead on arrival at St Anthony Hospital in Anjuna in North Goa on the intervening night of August 23 and 24. The Goa Police on Thursday booked two of Phogat’s associates for murder based on a complaint by Rinku. They also detained Phogat’s personal assistant Sudhir Sangwan and his associate Sukhwinder Singh Wasi. The two had accompanied Phogat on her trip to Goa. On Thursday, the result of her post-mortem examination conducted in Goa also revealed “multiple blunt force injuries” on Phogat’s body. The board of doctors that performed the autopsy has sent the viscera for chemical examination to find out if she was poisoned or drugged.
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BJP leaders in Haryana have expressed their solidarity with the Phogat family. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and BJP’s Haryana chief Om Prakash Dhankar also spoke to their counterparts in Goa and said that if Phogat’s family wanted a CBI probe, they would also ask the Goa government to consider it. Dhankar, however, added that the final decision shall be taken by that government.
Kuldeep Bishnoi, the former Adampur MLA against whom Sonali Phogat had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Assembly polls, said, “I request the government that a CBI probe should be recommended without any delay. I have also spoken to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in this regard.”