Rhea's lawyer seeks new medical board to probe Sushant's death

Actor Rhea Chakraborty’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde on Saturday (September 26) sought a new medical board to be set up by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to ensure that the investigation into Sushant Singh Rajput’s death remains impartial.

He added that the agencies that are currently probing his death were being pressurised to reach “pre-determined results” in view of the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls, according to Hindustan Times.

Maneshinde was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times, “The disclosure of a 200% conclusion by an All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) doctor on the forensic team headed by Dr Sudhir Gupta in Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case, on the basis of photographs, is a dangerous trend. To keep the investigations impartial and free from inference, the CBI must constitute a new medical board. The agencies are being pressurised to reach a pre-determined result for obvious reasons in view of upcoming Bihar elections. We have seen the VRS of DG (Gupteshwar) Pandey unfolding a few days back. There should not be a repetition of such steps.”

Maneshinde’s statement came in response to a tweet by Rajput’s family lawyer Vikas Singh, which claimed Sushant Singh Rajput had died by strangulation.

Taking to Twitter, Singh had claimed, “Getting frustrated by the delay in CBI taking a decision to convert abetment to suicide to murder of SSR. The doctor who is part of AIIMS team had told me long back that the photos sent by me indicated 200% that it’s death by strangulation and not suicide.”

During a press conference on Thursday, Vikas Singh had said Rajput’s family was disappointed that the investigation had derailed. “The family feels that the investigation is going in such a way that the truth is not coming out. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) case has become like the Mumbai Police investigation, all stars are now being called. The people called in and not are a part of a syndicate and not distributors. It is just a Mumbai Police type of investigation. Sushant’s case has taken a back seat,” news agency ANI quoted Singh as saying.

Meanwhile, actors Deepika Padukone, her manager Karishma Prakash, Sara Ali Khan, Shraddha Kapoor, and Rakul Preet recorded their statements with the NCB in connection with the alleged drug nexus in the Bollywood film industry.

Their names emerged when the NCB questioned Rhea Chakraborty, who is currently lodged in Mumbai’s Byculla jail for dealing with drugs.