CBI charges Sooraj Pancholi with abetting Jiah Khan’s suicide

Agency says Jiah Khan’ 2013 letter, in which she accused Sooraj Pancholi of “destroying her soul”, genuinely represents circumstances, reasons behind her suicide.

The CBI on Wednesday submitted the charge sheet in the Jiah Khan case in the session’s court, two-and-a-half years after the 25-year-old actress was found hanging from a ceiling fan in her Juhu flat on June 3, 2013. The agency confirmed that Sooraj Pancholi, Khan’s boyfriend at the time of her death, has been charged with abetting her suicide, as he had been by the Juhu police during the original probe.

Jiah KhCBI has filed charge sheet in Jiah Khan suicide case. The agency has charged actor Sooraj Pancholi in the case.(HT photo)

A CBI statement read, “It was alleged that a 3-page note seized by the state police on 10/06/2013 was written by Ms Jiah Khan, which narrated her intimate relationship, physical abuse and mental torture that she experienced at the hands of the said private person (Pancholi). The documents and the material objects of this case have been thoroughly and scientifically examined.

Sooraj Pancholi recently made her debut in Bollywood with Hero. (IANS)

“The Board of Forensic Medicine Experts has opined that the death was suicidal in nature, which corroborated the observation and opinion of the post-mortem doctor. The forensic statement-analysis of the note written by the deceased has opined that the said note allegedly represents her mental status genuinely and the circumstances and reasons behind her suicide.”

The Bombay high court had transferred the case from the Juhu police to the CBI last year. The court had said it was necessary for the CBI to probe aspects of the case, if any, that had been left out by the police, and to ascertain whether Khan’s death was a suicide or a homicide.

The analysis has “established that Sooraj was concealing relevant information about actual reason behind the incident and the statement given by him is incomplete and fabricated.”

Read: Salman kept me close after Jiah’s suicide, says Sooraj

The CBI said that according to its investigation, Khan and Pancholi met on Facebook in September 2012 and soon got into an intimate relationship. The agency said that on the day of her suicide, Khan left Pancholi’s home after staying with him for two to three days. The probe revealed that the couple had fought over the phone and through text messages, in which Khan accused Pancholi of not telling her about meeting a woman who was a common friend. Pancholi deleted the chat with Khan from his phone, according to the CBI.

The charge sheet alleged that Jiah tried to make contact with Sooraj and visited his bungalow. It claimed that she even called his cook but Sooraj asked him to convey that he was with his father Aditya Pancholi and could not take her calls, which was alleged to be a lie.

It alleged that later he received a call from Jiah which lasted for 400 pulses in which there was again a heated exchange of words between the two. CBI alleged that he sent 10 messages to her in the night which were abusive and accusatory in nature.