Sushant Singh Rajput death: CBI to question Rhea’s parents

ED, which is also investigating a case of money laundering against Rhea and others in connection with Rajput’s death, will question Goa-based hotelier Gaurav Arya for the second successive day on Tuesday

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned the parents of actor Rhea Chakraborty, who is at the centre of a controversy regarding the alleged death by suicide of her friend and actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

Rhea Chakraborty. (PTI)

Rhea’s parents left their residence in suburban Mumbai at around 10:30 am and reached the DRDO guest house in Santacruz (East) around 10:50 am.

CBI has been investigating Rajput’s death based on a first information report (FIR) filed by the late actor’s father KK Singh.

ED, which is also investigating a case of money laundering against Rhea and others in connection with Rajput’s death, will question Goa-based hotelier Gaurav Arya for the second successive day on Tuesday.

Arya reached the ED office in Mumbai at 11 am.

The jurisdictional turf war spilled into the legal arena as the Supreme Court was approached to decide if CBI could investigate the matter. The issue became deeply acrimonious and divisive at multiple levels — between the Rajput and Chakraborty families, between the actors’ respective sets of fans, between the governments of the two states in question, and between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its former ally Shiv Sena — and left the entertainment industry split vertically.

The case opened up a debate in and about the industry, devolving into a war of words and allegations between two camps largely made up of “insiders” (with generational links to Bollywood) and “outsiders” (first-generation actors and filmmakers). Chakraborty and her supporters alleged that the Bihar government was trying to hijack the emotive issue for political capital ahead of the upcoming state assembly elections.