CBI files closure report in Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, nearly 5 years on

The Bollywood actor was found dead in his Bandra home in 2020 & it was initially reported as a suicide case. The CBI later took over 2 cases filed by the Mumbai & Bihar Police.

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput | Wikimedia commons

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed closure reports into two cases investigating alleged foul play in the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput nearly five years ago.

“The cases have been closed, and closure reports have been filed before the competent court in Mumbai,” a source in the CBI confirmed to ThePrint.

Rajput, 34, who made his Bollywood debut in 2013 with the critically acclaimed ‘Kai Po Che’, was found dead in his apartment in Bandra, Mumbai, on 14 June 2020.

While the Mumbai Police initially suspected it to be a case of death by suicide, the matter escalated with the actor’s father approaching Bihar Police in Patna and seeking an investigation into the roles of actor Rhea Chakraborty, Rajput’s partner at the time, and her family behind the death.

Bihar Police registered a case in July 2020 under Sections 306 (abetment of suicide), 341 (wrongful restraint),  342 (wrongful confinement), 380 (theft), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

At the same time, Mumbai Police began investigating Rajput’s death as an accident under Section 174 (unnatural deaths) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

In August 2020, the CBI took over both cases on the Centre’s direction, even as Chakraborty moved the Supreme Court to have the case transferred from Bihar.

In August 2020, the CBI took over the case filed by Bihar Police on the Centre’s direction. It also probed a case filed by Chakraborty against Rajput’s sister Priyanka Singh, alleging the procurement of psychiatric drugs based on forged documents and prescriptions.

While the agency never arrested Chakraborty in the abetment of suicide case, she was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in a case related to the alleged consumption of drugs. She was released on bail in October of the same year.

Chakraborty was last summoned by the agency in 2021.

(If you are feeling suicidal or depressed, please call a helpline number in your state)

(Edited by Sanya Mathur)