Actor Sooraj Pancholi Acquitted in Jiah Khan Suicide Case 2023
Nearly a decade after the suicide death of actor Jiah Khan, a special CBI court in Mumbai today acquitted her boyfriend and fellow actor Sooraj Pancholi of complicity charges. Jiah Khan, 25 years old, was discovered hanging in her Juhu, Mumbai, residence on June 3, 2013.
Later, on the premise of a six-page letter purportedly written by Jiah, the police arrested Sooraj Pancholi and charged him with assisting in suicide. Jiah’s mother, Rabia Khan, alleged that her daughter was murdered.
Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court judge AS Sayyad ordered the accused to stand up, asked Sooraj Pancholi, 32, his name, and then declared, “Due to a lack of evidence, Sooraj Pancholi is acquitted.”
Son of actors Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab, Sooraj Pancholi faced up to ten years in prison if convicted. His mother accompanied him to the courtroom in order to hear the verdict.
Mr. Pancholi was arrested in June 2013 and released on bond in July 2013.
Jiah’s mother, Rabia Khan, a key prosecution witness in the case, testified that she believed it to be a homicide rather than a suicide. The Bombay High Court rejected her petition for a new investigation into the matter last year.
In response to the verdict, she reaffirmed that her daughter had been murdered. “The allegation of aiding in suicide has been dropped. How did my infant perish? This is a homicide case…will approach the high court,” she told the news agency ANI, adding that the cause of Jiah’s death “has not been determined.”
“The verdict indicates that Jiah committed suicide, but I have always maintained that she was assassinated. In fact, this strengthens my case”
The judge, AS Sayyad, heard the final arguments of both parties last week and deferred his decision.
The CBI alleged that Jiah Khan was the author of the letter seized by the Mumbai police, which initially investigated the case.
Jiah Khan’s suicide note allegedly detailed her “intimate relationship, physical abuse, and mental and physical torture” at the hands of Sooraj Pancholi, according to the central agency.
Sooraj Pancholi stated in his closing statement to the court on April 12, 2023, that he had been charged in a fraudulent case and was the victim of a false prosecution and persecution. He claimed to have sobbed when he learned of Jiah’s passing, stating, “I had lost the most important person in my life and the woman I truly loved.”
Jiah Khan is most well-known for her role in the Hindi film “Nishabd” starring Amitabh Bachchan.
