Panaji, December 31: A girl died of drug overdose at the Sunburn Music Festival in Goa on Wednesday. The 23-year-old girl, Meha Bahuguna, had come from Bangalore to attend the festival.
She was rushed to a private hospital in Panaji after she collapsed at the party venue on Tuesday evening.
She had reportedly consumed a hallucinatory drug called PCP.
A post-mortem has been ordered in the case and Goa Police are awaiting the results of a post-mortem. Unconfirmed reports say two more girls who had gone for the party were also taken ill.
Police personnel were not allowed inside the party premises, but drug pedalling at the festival was taking place despite the presence of sleuths of the Anti-Narcotics Cell at the venue.
Goa Police Director General of Police BS Bassi said that the girl had died but refused to admit that drugs were being sold at the music festival.
“The girl died yesterday (Wednesday) and the body has been sent to Government Medical College for post-mortem. Goa Police are taking all precaution and there was no sale of drugs. This is not first incident. We are booking all drug peddlers and we will make Goa drug free. We will not be able to tell anything before of post-mortem report,” Bassi told.
Even event organiser Sunset Getaways claimed that the party was drugs free.
“We were working with police to ensure a drugs free venue. We are not even sure if she died of a drug overdose since the post-mortem report is yet to come out. We didn’t even allow people with dilated pupils to enter the party. We told them to go somewhere else. We didn’t let those enter who even looked drunk or intoxicated. But we can only do so much,” said Lyndon Alves, President Sunset Getaways.
Meha’s Facebook profile shows that she was among five winners who got passes to the festival along with a two way tickets to Goa.
Meha worked for ITC Gardens in Bangalore and had won free tickets to the Sunburn Music Festival
Meha’s father Manu Bahuguna said that his daughter was suffering from bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression.
Bipolar Disorder is a serious mental health problem involving extreme mood swings, usually lasting weeks or months at a time.
The moods can be euphoric highs or bouts of deep depression and despair. It is also linked to stressful situations, which can trigger an episode of mania or depression in susceptible people, typically in their 20s.
Among those present at the party was VJ Nikhil Chinnappa.
The festival, being hosted at the height of Goa’s party season and the New Year eve, brought people from all over the world together to be a part of the musical extravaganza.
—Agencies