Preliminary report says Sonali Phogat died of cardiac arrest: Goa CM Pramod Sawant

Panaji: Preliminary reports suggest BJP leader and actor Sonali Phogat died of cardiac arrest, said Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday, a day after the state police registered a case of unnatural death in her demise.

"We are taking it seriously. The DGP (Director General of Police) himself is monitoring. The reports of investigation and postmortem will come to him. Preliminary reports, as per doctors and DGP, it seems to be cardiac arrest," Sawant told reporters here. Phogat, the 42-year-old BJP leader from Haryana, was in Goa where she died on August 23 with preliminary reports citing cardiac arrest as the reason for her sudden demise.

Later in the day the Goa police, in a press statement, said that "unnatural death (has been) registered in connection with the death of Sonali Phogat."

Phogat's kin have raised suspicion over the manner in which their sister died in Goa, where she had gone on August 22.
"I received a call from her the evening before her death. She said she wanted to talk over WhatsApp and said that something fishy was going on. She had spoken to our mother later and complained of uneasiness after having a meal. She told my mother that her body had stopped working properly after eating," Sonali's sister, Rupesh, told ANI.

Phogat contested the 2019 Haryana assembly election from Adampur constituency on a BJP ticket and lost to Kuldeep Bishnoi, who was then with Haryana Janhit Congress.
She became a household name after she appeared in the reality show 'Bigg Boss' in 2020.
Hours before her sudden demise, Phogat had posted some pictures and videos of herself on Instagram. In the images, she was seen flaunting her pink dupatta.

"My sister could not have had a heart attack. She was very fit. We demand a proper investigation. The family is not ready to accept that she died of a heart attack. She had no such medical problem," her elder sister Raman told ANI.
The post-mortem reports of the deceased actor-cum-leader are expected soon. (ANI)