In her bail plea before the Bombay High Court, actor Rhea Chakraborty has said that deceased actor Sushant Singh Rajput “was the only consumer of drugs and used others around him to facilitate his drug habit”, Live Law reported. Chakraborty’s brother Showik Chakraborty is also an appellant. The Mumbai court will hear the matter on Thursday.
“The said documents [evidence collected by the investigators] clearly indicate that Sushant Singh Rajput was the only consumer of drugs and that he was directing his staff members Samuel Miranda and Dipesh Sawant to procure his drugs,” Chakraborty’s application said. “Apart from that, the prosecution has made statements to the effect that applicant and her brother Showik are used by the late actor to procure drugs for himself.”
Chakraborty’s bail application also said that based on knowledge available publicly, a person called Neeraj, who worked as a cook for the late actor, told the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Mumbai Police that three days before his death, Rajput had asked him to make ganja joints and put them in his room. Neeraj accordingly did so, putting the weed in a box. After Rajput died, the box was found empty.
“Therefore, it is clear from the evidence collected by the investigating agencies that it was only the late Sushant Singh Rajput who was the consumer of the drugs and who was in habit of using those around him to facilitate his drug habit,” the application said.
Chakraborty accused the investigation agencies of targeting her and her brother in a witch-hunt. She claimed that Rajput told her that he develop a liking for weed during the shooting of Kedarnath in 2015-’16.
Chakraborty also alleged that Rajput’s sister Priyanka got drunk one night in April 2019 and molested her. She said that this incident led to a fight between Sushant Singh Rajput and Priyanka, and the souring of his relations with his family. Chakraborty added that Rajput feared that his brother-in-law, an Indian Police Service officer named OP Singh, would use his influence to threaten him.
Chakraborty said Rajput’s mother suffered from depression and Priyanka too took medicines for an illness. She alleged that Rajput suspected that his father too had bipolar disorder.
“On the morning of 8th June, Sushant had been on his phone incessantly and when the applicant enquired what he was doing, he showed her messages he was exchanging with his sister Priyanka Singh between 10.14 am and 10.18 am,” the plea said. “The applicant was shocked upon reading the said messages as his sister Priyanka had sent him a list of medications to take.” Chakraborty said she asked Rajput to stop taking the medicines as he had already been prescribed some by a doctor.
However, she said, Rajput said he would only take the medicines prescribed by his sister, and asked Chakraborty to leave the house, which she did. The plea said this was the last time Chakraborty saw Rajput before his death.
The case
On Tuesday, a court in Mumbai extended Chakraborty’s judicial custody till October 6. Chakraborty was arrested on September 9 on charges of drug abuse linked to Rajput’s death. The Narcotics Control Bureau has described Chakraborty as an “active member of a drug syndicate”.
On September 11, the court had denied Rhea Chakraborty bail in the case. Similar requests of Showik Chakraborty, Rajput’s former manager Samuel Miranda and three other accused were also rejected.
Rhea Chakraborty has claimed that she is being framed in the case and has made multiple serious allegations against the Narcotics Control Bureau. The actor has claimed she was “coerced into making self-incriminatory” confessions, which she has now retracted. She said she had “not committed any crime whatsoever and had been falsely implicated in the case”. Chakraborty is the ninth person to be arrested in the drug-related investigation into Rajput’s death.
Rajput was found dead in his apartment in Bandra on June 14, in what the Mumbai Police said was a case of suicide. The Narcotics Control Bureau is the latest agency to be drawn into the case involving the death of the 34-year-old actor, which is already being looked into by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate.
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