BJP leader and actress Sonali Phogat was drugged by her manager Sudhir Sangwan and his associate at a restaurant on Anjuna beach in Goa before returning to her hotel and complaining of being unwell, an officer said on Friday. Goa Police Chief.

Inspector General of Police Omvir Singh Bishnoi said after investigators confronted Sangwan and his associate Sukhwinder Singh with CCTV footage of the Curlies restaurant they visited on August 22, the two confessed to forcing Sonali Phogat to consume an “odious” substance after which she was visibly unstable. .

“We don’t know what heinous chemical was mixed into the drink that was forcefully given to him, but it’s a synthetic drug. Until chemical analysis, we can’t say for sure” , Bishnoi said.

Sudhir Sangwan and Sukhwinder Singh were arrested and brought before a judge who took them into custody for two days.

Phogat, who hailed from Hisar in Haryana and rose to fame on TikTok, was brought dead to St Anthony’s Hospital in Anjuna in North Goa district on the morning of August 23. The cause was given as a suspected heart attack. On Thursday, a murder case was filed on her brother’s complaint.

Investigators were unable to determine the motive. Bishnoi said they were still looking.

“At the moment we have no evidence that this is a case of long-standing harassment. But behind every crime there is always probably an economic interest and I think that in this crime too there is may be of economic interest,” he said.

The senior police officer clarified that the multiple blunt-force injuries listed by forensic experts in the autopsy report were minor bruises and were not the cause of his death.

“These are not life-threatening injuries. They are not severe enough to cause a person’s death. These are very minor injuries. And we asked the defendant about it and he said it was abrasion marks when they were trying to lift her off the toilet,” Bishnoi said.

The police officer said that when they confronted the two suspects with the CCTV footage, “Sudhir Sangwan and Sukhwinder confessed that they intentionally gave the accused a heinous chemical after which the victim was not more herself and had to be taken care of. At around 4:30 p.m., when she could not hold herself back any longer, the victim was taken to the toilet,” Bishnoi said.

He added that police had yet to establish the identities of those seen partying in the CCTV footage. “There were a lot of people in the Curlies cabin. We recorded the statement of the taxi driver who spoke of the condition she was in when she was taken from Curlies to the hotel”.

Police said they opened investigations shortly after Sonali Phogat’s death, initially in an unnatural death case. Based on a complaint filed by his brother Rinku Dhaka pointing the finger at his sister’s manager, a murder case was filed on Thursday.

Phogat’s family, who were considering demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation after Goa police officers initially ruled out foul play in his death, said they were satisfied with the police investigation and brought his body back to Hisar in Haryana to perform the last rites.