A sessions court framed charges against Sooraj Pancholi for allegedly abetting Jiah Khan’s suicide. Judge K D Shirbhate framed charges against the 27-year-old actor under section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code, to which he pleaded not guilty.
“Sooraj pleaded innocence, and the examination of witnesses will start from February 14,” his lawyer Prashant Patil said. According to the charge sheet, Jiah Khan, was found hanging at her residence on June 3, 2013, by her mother, Rabiya.
She had left the house of Sooraj Pancholi, where she had been staying for the last two days, in the morning the same day, it said. According to the CBI, Pancholi had “hidden facts and fabricated information” during questioning.
Sooraj Pancholi had refused to undergo polygraph or brain-mapping tests which the agency wanted to conduct to get to the bottom of his alleged role in the incident. The CBI said a three-page note seized by the Mumbai Police, which earlier probed the case, on June 10, 2013, was written by Khan which narrated her “intimate relationship, physical abuse and mental and physical torture” allegedly at the hands of Pancholi which led her to commit suicide.
It said the letter was not signed and even not addressed to Sooraj Pancholi but it incriminated him. In October 2013, Rabiya Khan had moved the Bombay High Court alleging that her daughter had been murdered and sought a CBI probe, which was granted.
Jiah Khan allegedly committed suicide as she was found hanging at her Mumbai residence on June 3, 2013. She left behind a note allegedly pointing a finger at Sooraj Pancholi, son of actors Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab.
The Mumbai police, thereafter, had arrested Sooraj Pancholi on charges of ‘abetment to (Jiah’s) suicide’ and he was later granted bail. The CBI had concurred with Mumbai police that Jiah’s death was a suicide and not a murder. Jiah Khan made her debut with Nishabd opposite Amitabh Bachchan and featured in the films such as Ghajini and Housefull.
