Sonali Phogat murder: Three accused sent to 5-day police custody

A Goa court on Sunday remanded three of the accused arrested in the case of alleged murder of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sonali Phogat to police custody for five days, a senior police official said.

The police produced the three accused -- Edwin Nunes, who owns the Curlies restaurant in Goa, and two drug peddlers Dattaprasad Gaonkar and Ramakant Mandrekar -- before the court in Panaji.

The court sent them in police custody for five days, the official said.

Nunes had also moved an application for bail, but the court rejected it, the official added.

Phogat (43), a former Tik Tok star and contestant on the reality TV show Big Boss, was brought dead to a hospital in North Goa district on August 23, a day after arrival in the coastal state.

On Saturday night, the Anjuna police in North Goa arrested drug peddler Rama alias Ramadas Mandrekar for allegedly supplying drugs to another peddler Dattaprasad Gaonkar, who is already in custody in connection with the case, an official said earlier in the day.

The police had earlier also arrested two of Phogat's associates - Sudhir Sagwan and Sukhwinder Singh - who accompanied her on the Goa trip.

They were charged with murder and a court on Saturday remanded Sangwan and Singh in police custody for 10 days.

Nunes, the other arrested man, is the owner of the Curlies restaurant in North Goa where Phogat and her aides had partied on the intervening night of August 22 and 23.

Phogat was administered methamphetamine, and some left-over drug was recovered from the restaurant's washroom, Deputy Superintendent of Police Jivba Dalvi had said.