Vikas Singh, the lawyer of deceased actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s family, on Monday said he was deeply disturbed by the findings of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences panel, which ruled out the actor was murdered and confirmed he died by suicide. Singh said he would ask the Central Bureau of Investigation, which had appointed the panel, to constitute a fresh forensic team in the case.
On Saturday, in a medico-legal opinion submitted to the CBI, the six-member team of forensic doctors dismissed allegations of “poisoning and strangling” and confirmed that Rajput’s death was “a case of hanging and death by suicide”. However, the CBI has not issued an official statement on the report so far.
“There were no injuries on the body other than [that] of hanging,” Dr Sudhir Gupta, chairperson of AIIMS Forensic Medical Board, said. “There were no marks of struggle/scuffle on the body and clothes of the deceased. It is a case of hanging and death by suicide.”
But Rajput’s advocate questioned the panel’s method of reporting the findings and asked how could it give a conclusive opinion in the absence of the actor’s body. “Highly perturbed with AIIMS report,” he tweeted. “How could AIIMS team give a conclusive report in the absence of the body, that too on such a shoddy post mortem done by the Cooper hospital [in Mumbai] wherein the time of death is also not mentioned.”
The panel of doctors at AIIMS examined Singh’s autopsy reports based on the 20% viscera sample available with them. The forensic agencies have examined a laptop, two hard disks, a canon camera and two mobile phones as part of the investigation.
The panel had concurred with the opinion of the Mumbai hospital, which had conducted the postmortem. The Mumbai hospital’s autopsy report had found “asphyxia due to hanging” as the cause of the actor’s death. On Saturday, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said that their investigation into Rajput’s death, which had been a bone of contention between the governments of Bihar and Maharashtra, was vindicated by the findings of the panel.
Last week, lawyer Vikas Singh had claimed that a doctor on the AIIMS panel had also told him that the actor was strangled to death. But Sudhir Gupta, the head of forensics team had refuted the claim, saying the panel had not submitted its final findings to the CBI.
The Shiv Sena on Monday said that it was “speechless” if people doubted the Central Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the case even. “It [AIIMS report] is as per the reports of Dr Sudhir Gupta, who is the head of AIIMS Forensic Medical Board in Sushant Singh Rajput death case,” party leader Sanjay Raut told ANI. “He doesn’t have any political connection or any links with the Shiv Sena.”
Raut alleged that there has been a conspiracy to malign the Maharashtra government and the Mumbai Police since the initial days after Rajput’s death. “Since the very beginning, in this case, there has been a conspiracy to malign Maharashtra government and Mumbai Police,” he added. “If now CBI inquiry is also not being trusted, then we’re speechless.”
Rajput was found dead in his apartment in Bandra on June 14, in what the Mumbai Police said was a case of suicide. The Central Bureau of Investigation had taken over the inquiry from the Bihar Police in an abetment to suicide case filed by the actor’s father KK Singh in Patna against actor Rhea Chakraborty and her family.
After a drug angle emerged in the case, the Narcotics Control Bureau arrested Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik Chakraborty for their alleged role in procuring drugs for Rajput. The agency described Rhea Chakraborty as an “active member of a drug syndicate”.
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