Lagatar24 Desk
Mumbai, April 28: A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Mumbai on Friday exonerated actor Sooraj Pancholi of abutment accusations, nearly ten years after Jiah Khan, an actress, committed suicide.
“Due to paucity of evidence, this court can’t hold you (Sooraj Pancholi) guilty, hence acquitted,” Special CBI court judge Judge AS Sayyed said while pronouncing the verdict.
On June 3, 2013, Jiah Khan’s body was discovered in her suburban house. Following the revelation of their turbulent relationship in a letter by Jiah Khan, her boyfriend, Sooraj Pancholi, was detained for abetment to suicide.
According to the CBI, Jiah Khan’s suicide was prompted by the note’s description of her “intimate relationship, physical abuse, and mental and physical torture” at the hands of Sooraj.
Rabia Khan, Jiah’s mother, claimed that her daughter had been murdered. Rabia filed a petition with the Bombay High Court in October 2013 asking for a CBI investigation into the issue and asserting that her daughter had been murdered. According to Rabia, Sooraj Pancholi was aggressive towards her daughter. Dating began between Jiah and Sooraj in September 2012.
In July 2014, the CBI took over the investigation from the Maharashtra Police at the Bombay High Court’s direction.
However, Sooraj Pancholi asserted that the investigation and chargesheet were false in his final statement submitted to the court, adding that the prosecution’s witnesses gave false testimony against him at the direction of complainant Rabia Khan, the police, and the CBI.
Rabia Khan responded to the verdict by stating again that her daughter was killed and that “The charge of abetment to suicide has gone. But how did my child die?”
“This is a case of murder. Will approach the high court,” she added.
