Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death mystery is now heading towards a foregone conclusion. Both the AIIMS forensic panel and the CBI, which investigated the matter, have reached the conclusion that the actor’s death was due to suicide and there was no evidence of foul play, poisoning or forced entry.
Before I elaborate more on this point, let me first go through what the Bombay High Court said on Wednesday while ordering the release of Sushant’s ex-girlfriend and actor Rhea Chakraborty on bail. Rhea walked out of Mumbai’s Byculla women’s jail soon after the High Court granted her bail in the NDPS drugs case. She spent 28 days in custody on charge of buying narcotics from dealers.
The High Court in its order, running into 70 pages, said there was no substance in Narcotics Control Bureau’s charges that Rhea was “financing” drug network or “indulging in drug trafficking”. “She is not part of a chain of drug dealers”, nor were drugs recovered from her apartment, said Justice Sarang Kotwal in his order. Along with Rhea, two other accused Sushant’s house manager Samuel Miranda and house staff Dipesh Sawant were also released on bail. However Rhea’s brother Showik Charaborty’s bail petition was rejected on grounds that he “was in direct contact with drug dealers”.
NCB had charged Rhea of financing drug trafficking and ‘harbouring’ drug dealers, and also of being an ‘active member of a drug syndicate’. The High Court said, ‘there is nothing at this stage to show she committed any offence involving commercial quantity of drugs”. The judge however imposed stringent vail conditions on Rhea and directed her to report daily at a nearest police station for the first ten days “to show her availability”.
The High Court judge said that a distinction has to be made between drug traffickers who profited from deals and others who are not “main offenders” in cases involving drug offences. The judge did not agree with NCB’s contention that giving money for supplying drugs to actor Sushant Singh Rajput would attract Section 27A of NDPS Act which is usually invoked for ‘financing’ drug deals.
The court did not agree with the Additional Solicitor General’s observations that celebrities and role models should be dealt with stringently so that an example could be set for the younger generation. The judge said, everybody was equal in the eyes of law. When celebrities and role models are not given special privileges before the court, they should not be dealt with also in a different manner, the judge observed. They (celebrities) have no special liability and every case should be decided on merit irrespective of who the accused is, said the judge.
The drug case against Rhea Chakraborty was weak right from the beginning and lawyers from both sides knew it. It was only a matter of time that she was released on bail.
And now, let me elaborate on what the AIIMS and CBI have said about Sushant Singh’s death. After the AIIMS forensic panel consisting of seven doctors concluded that there was no evidence of poison in the viscera of the late actor, the suspicion of murder has been ruled out.
India TV reporter has accessed a CBI report which matches with the findings of the AIIMS panel. In its report, the CBI team has said that after reconstruction of suicide in the apartment of the actor, and based on statements of witnesses, there does not appear to be any foul play or forced entry which could trigger suspicions about murder. The report says, there was not a single evidence of any struggle inside the bed room with any outsider. The report also mentions that no evidence of poison was found in the preliminary forensic report. In a nutshell, the CBI has almost arrived at the conclusion that Sushant Singh Rajput died because of suicide, and not murder.
Another notable evidence that has been mentioned in CBI report is that out of Rs 70 crore worth transactions in the bank accounts of Sushant Singh Rajput, only Rs 55 lakhs were spent on Rhea Chakraborty. Most of the expenses were related to travel, spa and gifts. The overall conclusion seems to be that Sushant’s death was not the result of any conspiracy, it was a clear case of suicide. Though the CBI has not made its report public, but India TV has accessed to most of the findings in the report.
In a last-ditch attempt on Wednesday, Vikas Singh, lawyer of Sushant’s father, has sent a letter to the CBI demanding that a second forensic panel be set up go through the medical reports and viscera sample. The lawyer rejected the findings of the AIIMS forensic panel headed by Dr Sudhir Gupta. It must be noted that it was on the insistence of Sushant’s family that the AIIMS forensic panel was constituted even though the Cooper Hospital doctors had given their post mortem report.
I believe that the CBI must make its report public soon and put a stop to endless speculations. There is no investigating agency better than the CBI which could have probed the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. Pointing fingers of suspicion at each and every person must stop. People should stop acting as investigator, lawyer and judge combined together. Let CBI complete its job and all suspicions be laid to rest.