Hisar: Three days after her death under mysterious circumstances, BJP leader and actress Sonali Phogat’s last rites were performed Friday in Hisar in the presence of her family members and well-wishers.
Her daughter Yashodhara, 16, lit the funeral pyre under the watchful eyes of over 500 people who had flocked to the Rishi Nagar crematorium. Political leaders were among those who attended the last rites.
Earlier, her body was taken from her farmhouse to the crematorium amid showers of rose petals and slogans of ‘Sonali Phogat Amar Rahe’ (long live Sonali Phogat) by her followers and party workers.
Emotional scenes played out as the body, wrapped in BJP flag, left for its final journey. Yashodhara, whom Sonali affectionately called her ‘Meri Lado’ (my beloved), was initially too numb to utter a word. But when the body was being taken away, she came running from inside the house and insisted that she wanted to be a part of her mother’s last journey.
“Wo meri maa hai, mujhe bhi jaane do (She is my mother, I want to accompany her too),” the young girl pleaded.
A group of wailing elderly women surrounded Yashodhara as she accompanied her mother on her last journey during which she also lifted the bier. Her father had also died under mysterious circumstances in 2016.
Sonali, 42, had joined the BJP in 2008 and was the vice-president of the state BJP Mahila Morcha. She had been into politics for over a decade but it was only in the last few years that she had seriously pursued electoral ambitions. She had unsuccessfully contested against Congress’ Kuldeep Bishnoi from Haryana’s Adampur assembly seat in 2019.
Bishnoi, who is now with the BJP, was also present at the funeral. Sonali’s death was a personal and political loss for him, he told the press.
The two leaders had met at her residence a week before her death. Apart from Bishnoi, Haryana BJP minister and Hisar MLA Kamal Gupta was also present at the crematorium.
“We were contesting against each other during the last election but this time there was no difference. She had assured me that she would support whoever decides to contest the Aadampur bypoll — whether it’s me or my son Bhavya,” Bishnoi told mediapersons.
Bishnoi supported the bereaved family’s demand for a CBI investigation into the mysterious death. He added that he wasn’t aware if there was any kind of political involvement in her death.
Also Read: Sonali Phogat’s autopsy finds ‘multiple injuries’ on body, family claims rape, poisoning
Suspicious death
While the news of Sonali’s death due to a ‘suspected’ heart attack had first surfaced on the morning of 23 August, the family had hinted at a foul play since the very next day and demanded that a case of murder be registered.
On Thursday, an autopsy report revealed that Sonali had sustained ‘blunt force injuries’ on her body. “Although the cause of death has been reserved, pending chemical analysis, histopathology and serological reports of the tissues preserved, however, there are multiple blunt force injuries over the body,” the autopsy report noted.
Sonali’s sister Rupesh said she received a call from her the previous night saying that she was feeling something was fishy and wanted to talk on WhatsApp, but cut the call and didn’t pick up later.
Sonali’s brother Rinku Dhaka had Wednesday filed a complaint with the Goa Police, accusing her personal assistant Sudhir Sangwan and his aide Sukhvinder of killing her. A case of murder was registered against the duo and they were detained later.
Sonali’s younger brother Vatan Dhaka told ThePrint that he had no inkling that his sister’s personal assistant could become a threat to her life. “She never spoke about it earlier. If we knew she was being tortured by him, we would have done something. He (Sangwan) came to work with her when she was contesting the election. She had met the other person (Sukhvinder) twice or thrice. She didn’t know him properly,” he said.
In the police complaint, the family alleged that Sonali started trusting Sangwan and Sukhwinder who voluntarily came to work with her. Sudhir allegedly removed the cook and cleaner working at Sonali’s place.
The family alleged that Sonali trusted Sangwan so much that she would sign documents given by him without even reading them. He also allegedly raped her and made a video, on which basis he was further blackmailing her and raping her, and would threaten that he would make the video go viral and destroy her political and acting career, the family claimed.
The complaint also claimed Sangwan allegedly raping Sonali three years ago after spiking her drink. “He threatened her that he would make the video of the act viral. She said that he threatened and blackmailed her and again raped her. He said it will destroy her political career,” it read.
Politics involved?
A day before her death on 23 August, Sonali had posted a video on her Twitter account with the title— ‘How Sonali Phogat almost became the Smriti Irani of Aadampur’.
The tweet was an indirect reference to Kuldeep Bishnoi, the son of former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal. When a speculation was rife that Bishnoi was going to join the BJP, Sonali had posted a tweet tagging him, which read:
“Meri mehnat ka asar toh dekh ae zamane, Zamin ho khiskayi uske pairon tale se, Aasra mangne use mere hi dar pe aana pada.” (See the effect of my hard work, From under the feet of whom the ground was swept off, He had to come at my place to ask for shelter)
Sonali’s cryptic tweets targeting political rivals doesn’t end here. She also posted another tweet in Hindi on 10 August, which read, “When the lioness goes back two steps, it does not mean that she is scared. This means that she has become fierce and is about to hunt”.
जब शेरनी दो कदम पीछे जाती है तो इसका मतलब ये नही होता वो डर गई।
इसका मतलब है वो ओर ख़ूँख़ार हो गई है ओर शिकार करने वाली है।
???……..
— Sonali Phogat (@sonaliphogatbjp) August 10, 2022
According to sources close to the family, Sonali met senior BJP leader and Union Minister Kaushal Kishore recently and requested her candidature for the Hisar Lok Sabha seat. “She was of the opinion that if Kuldeep Bishnoi was being given the Adampur assembly seat, she deserved no less than the Hisar Lok Sabha seat whenever elections happen next,” the source told ThePrint.
It was also said that when she met Kuldeep Bishnoi, she had expressed her support to him in the Adampur bypoll for the MLA seat which got empty after he resigned from the Congress to join the BJP.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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