The Wages Of Grief

 Grief can be a powerful force for conspiracy theories. Someone you love dies unexpectedly, and the loss makes you angry. Someone must be blamed. Doc­tors are well aware of this phenomenon because they are often blamed for deaths that could not have been avoided. When it comes to celebrities, it gets more complicated be­cause now the state finds itself compelled to get involved. Zubeen Garg, the Assamese singer, died in Singapore while scuba diving last month, and his own wife has been saying it was an accident. And yet, this week, both his manager and the organiser of the festival that took him to the coun­try have been arrested by the Assam police.

Garg was an icon, and his death led to great anguish among millions of his fans in Assam. Some filed FIRs in the police station. A Special Investigation Team has been formed, and the chief minister has stated that if that is found unsatisfactory, the Central Bureau of Investigation could take over. All this with­out anyone being clear on what exactly is the crime committed.

If Garg died in Sin­gapore, then the police there have the ability to investigate it. Drown­ing has been ruled as the cause of death by them. They haven’t found anything suspicious, at least not yet. Arrest usually follows evidence. Instead, the cart has been inverted before the horse to slake the public’s thirst for answers that might have no reason to exist. The phones, computers, etc, of those arrested will now be pried into in the hope of finding something. And as this modus operandi goes, bits of rumours will leak to the media to suggest a con­spiracy. Eventually, when tempers cool down, the courts will quietly let them off, and by then, no one will care either.

To assume select deaths must be murders because of the sentiment of fans and followers is a slippery slope to mob justice. You saw a similar phenomenon when the actor Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide. His partner and her brother were arrested, only to be eventu­ally let off without an apology.