Almost a decade after actress Jiah Khan's death by suicide, a special CBI court in Mumbai on Friday, April 28, acquitted her boyfriend and film star Sooraj Pancholi of abetment charges. Soon after verdict in the Jiah Khan suicide case, Sooraj Pancholi took to his Instagram Story to share a post about the big relief.
The 32-year-old actor wrote, "The truth always wins" with the hashtag 'GodIsGreat' along with praying hands and a heart emoji.
"Due to paucity of evidence, Sooraj Pancholi is acquitted"
The Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court judge AS Sayyad directed the accused to step forward, asking him his name and pronounced, "Due to paucity of evidence, Sooraj Pancholi is acquitted". The actor's mother, Zarina Wahab, was also seen accompanying him in the Mumbai court. If convicted, Sooraj, the son of actor couple Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab, would have faced a jail term of up to 10 years.
Jiah's mother Rabia Khan, a key prosecution witness in the case, had told the court that she believed it to be a case of murder and not suicide. Last year, the Bombay High Court dismissed her petition seeking a fresh investigation into the case.
Reacting to the verdict, she reiterated that her daughter was killed. "The charge of abetment to suicide has gone. But how did my child die? This is a case of murder...will approach the high court," she told news agency ANI, adding that the cause of Jiah's death "has not yet been determined".
"I have always maintained that Jiah was murdered"
Rabia told NDTV, "The verdict is on alleged suicide, but I have always maintained that Jiah was murdered. This, in fact, strengthens my case".
Meanwhile, in his final statement to the court on April 12, 2023, Sooraj Pancholi said that he had been booked in a false case and that he was the victim of a false prosecution and persecution. He claimed that he had broken down when he heard about Jiah's death and said, "I had lost the most important person of my life and the woman whom I truly loved."
Jiah Khan, a 25-year-old American citizen, was found hanging at her Juhu home in Mumbai on June 3, 2013. In June 2013, police arrested Sooraj Pancholi on the basis of a six-page letter, purportedly written by Jiah, and booked him for abetment of suicide. However, he was released on bail in July 2013.
