Rajput and Chakrabort
Bollywood actress, Rhea Chakraborty has been arrested for allegedly buying drugs for her former boyfriend, actor Sushant Singh Rajput, whose suicide ignited a media storm in India.
Thirty-four year old Rajput who was a star with many hit movies to his name, had his suicide initially triggering a debate over mental health in the multi-billion-dollar industry after he was found dead in June in his Mumbai apartment.
Police reports claimed he took his own life but his family disputed reports that he suffered from depression and accused his girlfriend, Chakraborty, 28, of stealing his money and harassing him. However, she has strongly denied the allegations.
Chakraborty was arrested on Tuesday by the police who have also detained others in connection with the case including her brother and a member of Rajput’s house staff.
India’s top anti-crime agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, has been investigating his death since last month and the Narcotics Control Bureau, NCB, was looking into the star’s consumption of cannabis.
The NCB Director, Mutha Ashok Jain told newsmen that “We will be opposing bail petitions” for all suspects, and that the actress has been remanded to judicial custody until September 22.
The investigation has stolen headlines for months, with the media closely following the back-and-forth allegations between Rajput’s family and Chakraborty.
Some celebrities including actress Sonam Kapoor and director Anurag Kashyap accused TV channels of carrying out a “witch hunt” against Chakraborty.
Born in the eastern state of Bihar, Rajput left engineering studies to pursue a career in acting and dance and got his big break in 2013 with “Kai Po Che”, a film about cricket, love, and politics that won acclaim at the Berlin film festival. He was also praised for his portrayal of Indian cricket hero, Mahendra Singh Dhoni in a hit 2016 biopic.
In an interview with newsmen that year, Rajput spoke of the emotional excitement he experienced while filming the movie, which portrayed the heartbreak suffered by Dhoni when the cricketer’s girlfriend died as said: “After we did the preparation, in my head I was him and everything that was happening was actually affecting me.”
Rajput’s last film was a Hindi remake of the Hollywood romance, “The Fault in Our Stars”, titled “Dil Bechara” (“Poor Heart”), which was released in July.