Actor Sooraj Pancholi was accused of helping his then-actress lover Jiah Khan commit suicide in 2013, but a special CBI court in this city on Friday cleared him of the charge due to a lack of evidence.
The Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 306 (abetment of suicide) is the accusation levelled against Sooraj Pancholi, 32, who is now free on bail. Rabia Khan, the mother of Jiah Khan, has been disputing the prosecution's assertion that her daughter committed suicide and maintained that she was really murdered.
According to Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Court Judge A S Sayyad on Friday, Pancholi is found not guilty by the court owing to a lack of evidence. Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab's kid Sooraj was present in court for the announcement of the decision along with his mother.
In connection with the matter, Sooraj was detained in June 2013 and freed on bail in July 2013. On June 3, 2013, Jiah (25), a resident of the United States, was discovered dead in her Juhu residence. On the basis of a six-page letter that was allegedly written by the Hindi movie superstar, police subsequently detained Sooraj.
Sooraj Pancholi claimed that he had been the target of a false prosecution and persecutory behaviour in his last statement to the court on April 12, 2023. He claimed in that statement to have sobbed after learning of Jiah's death and to have added, “I had lost the most important person of my life and the woman whom I truly loved.”