Mumbai, India | Wed, October 7, 2020 | 08:18 pm
Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty won bail Wednesday, nearly a month after being arrested for allegedly buying drugs for her ex-boyfriend actor Sushant Singh Rajput, whose suicide sparked a media storm in India.
Rajput, 34, was found dead in his Mumbai apartment in June, causing a national frenzy with TV news channels speculating that he was inspired by Chakraborty to kill himself with cannabis and black magic.
A star with several hits to his credit, Rajput ‘s suicide initially sparked a debate in India’s multi-billion – dollar film industry about mental health.
But the family of Rajput denied reports that he was suffering from depression and accused Chakraborty, 28, of stealing and harassing his income. She has refuted the allegations strongly.
On Wednesday, her lawyer Satish Maneshinde said a court in Mumbai ordered the actress to be released on bail, calling it a victory for “truth and justice.”
“Rhea’s detention and imprisonment was utterly unjustified and beyond the scope of the law,” he said in a statement.
Showik ‘s brother, who was also arrested last month, is still in jail.
Chakraborty and her family have been abused by Indian media who have been obsessing about the case for months, with some celebrities accusing TV channels of carrying out a “witch hunt” against her, including actresses Vidya Balan and Sonam Kapoor.
Since August, the country’s top anti-crime body, the Central Bureau of Investigation, has been investigating Rajput ‘s murder, while the Drug Control Bureau has been investigating his cannabis use.
Earlier this month, the Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences completed its forensic examination and officially ruled that the actor had died by suicide, not murder, ignoring some TV channels’ sensational arguments.
With police hauling in celebrity Deepika Padukone and other actresses for questioning last month, the saga has now morphed into an investigation into drug usage in Bollywood.
Bollywood stars were not unique since Rajput was not a man of one of the many influential families of industry, but instead from the poorest country of India, Bihar.
Abandoning his engineering studies in Delhi for Mumbai, he made a big break in 2013 and received acclaim for his portrayal of Indian cricket hero Mahendra Singh Dhoni in a hit biopic in 2016.
In an interview with AFP that year, he spoke about the emotional rollercoaster he had encountered while shooting a film that depicted the heartbreak endured by Dhoni when his girlfriend died.
“After we did the training, I was in my head, and all that was going on was actually influencing me,” he said.