A Goa Police team investigating the murder of BJP leader Sonali Phogat Sunday visited her personal assistant and prime accused Sudhir Sangwan’s house in Rohtak. The team later went to a flat in Gurgaon that Sangwan and Phogat had rented. Police investigations have revealed that the two had stayed at the apartment before leaving for Goa. At Sangwan's house in Rohtak, the police found his passport and made inquiries. A two-member Goa police team reached the Emaar Gurgaon Greens society in Sector 102 Gurgaon around 2.30 pm and left by around 7.30 pm. They were accompanied by police personnel from local police station of Gurgaon. Four members of Phogat’s family were also present. Sources said the police team seized some jewellery, watches, a passport, a mobile phone, and some documents from the flat. A Goa police officer told media persons, “We have seized several things that we thought were important including jewellery, documents…we searched a car parked in the society…we have recovered the driving licence of Sudhir. We will examine the things that have been seized and see what emerges and accordingly, conduct the probe.” Sandeep Phogat, President RWA of Emaar Gurgaon Greens, said, “Sudhir had rented a flat in the society on June 1. The lease agreement of the flat is in his name.” Sonali Phogat, a BJP leader from Haryana’s Adampur constituency, died in Goa on August 22. Preliminary investigation suggested that the cause of death was forcible drug overdose. On her family member’s complaints, Goa police had registered a case on charges of murder against Sudhir Sangwan and his friend Sukhwinder. Phogat was allegedly administered methamphetamine, and some left-over drug was recovered from the restaurant's washroom, Goa police had said earlier. Phogat’s family, however, has been hinting at a “larger political conspiracy” behind her death and has accused Sangwan of murdering her with a motive to grab her property. They accompanied the Goa Police to Gurgaon and have been demanding a CBI probe in the case. Sonali had contested the 2019 assembly polls from the Adampur constituency in Hisar on a BJP ticket but lost to then Congress candidate Kuldeep Bishnoi. In her 2019 election affidavit, she had declared her total assets worth Rs 2.74 crore. However, her family now claims that the current market value of her total assets was far more than what was declared in her election affidavit. Newsletter | Click to get the day's best explainers in your inbox Her family members have also said that they would be filing a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking a CBI probe if the Goa Police do not hand over the investigation. Despite a letter from Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar urging a CBI probe in the case, Goa's chief minister Pramod Sawant has so far not agreed on that and had maintained that the “Goa police's investigation was going in the right direction”. It has been five days since a team of Goa police has been visiting several places in Haryana while investigating Sonali's murder. They have earlier been to her farmhouse and her residence and office in Hisar. They also visited the banks where she had her bank accounts. The Goa police also visited Hisar's tehsil office to verify the property-related documents that Sonali had in her name. The Goa police team have also recovered a bunch of papers that indicate that Sudhir Sangwan was trying to take Sonali's land on lease. The team had reached Hisar on Wednesday in connection with the probe as part of which they had visited Phogat's farmhouse and house in Sant Nagar. They also collected Phogat and Sangwan’s bank and property details.
