Actor Sooraj Pancholi has been acquitted in abetment to suicide charges in connection with the 2013 death of his girlfriend, actress Jiah Khan. On Friday, a special CBI court in Mumbai cleared Sooraj of all charges due to lack of evidence.
Delivering his judgement, the judge said, "Due to paucity of evidence, this court can't hold you (Sooraj Pancholi) guilty, hence acquitted."
25-year-old Jiah was found dead at her Mumbai residence in June 2013. Four days later, a six-page suicide note was recovered from the actress’ apartment. The actress' mother Rabia said that Sooraj Pancholi (Jiah's boyfriend) was responsible for her death, driving her to take her own life. She also claimed that Sooraj was verbally and physically abusing the actress. Sooraj Pancholi was arrested by the Juhu police on June 10.
Sooraj was released after spending 22 days in jail when he was granted bail by the Bombay High Court. In October 2013, Rabia Khan moved the Bombay High Court demanding a CBI probe and the case was handed to CBI in July 2014.
In December 2015, the CBI submitted a report before the court and termed the case as an abetment to suicide. Rabia demanded an SIT be formed to probe the matter. However, in February 2017, her demand for the formation of the SIT was rejected by the High Court. In 2018, her demand for further investigation was also rejected by the trial court.
On 15th March 2019, the trial began and the case was reassigned to the Special CBI Court. Last week, on April 20, the court reserved its judgement in the case and fixed April 28 as the date for delivering the verdict.
Jiah Khan began her career in Bollywood at the age of 19 with the film Nishabd in 2007 and went on to appear in hits such as Ghajini and Housefull, the only other films in her short career. As per reports, she and Sooraj Pancholi began dating just over a year before her death. Sooraj is the son of Bollywood actors Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab.
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