AIIMS Doctor Said Sushant Singh Rajput Was Strangled: Family Lawyer

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput's family lawyer Vikas Singh has claimed that a doctor, part of the team from the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) that conducted forensic tests in the case, had told him that the movie star had been strangled and did not commit suicide as reported by the Mumbai Police.

Mr Singh took to Twitter on Friday to say that he was getting "frustrated" with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and that the doctor had told him "long back" that photos of Sushant Singh's body indicated that he was strangled to death.

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.

— Vikas Singh (@vikassinghSrAdv) September 25, 2020

At a news conference later in the day, he said, the pace of CBI probe into Sushant Singh Rajput's death had "suddenly slowed down" and all attention was being diverted to drugs-related issues with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) conducting a "fashion parade" of Bollywood stars

"Today, we are helpless as we don''t know which direction the case is going in. Normally a press briefing is done by CBI. But in this case, till today, CBI has not done a press briefing on what they have found out. This is a very serious issue," Mr Singh said.

Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, was found dead in his Mumbai apartment on June 14. The Mumbai Police said it was suicide and had been investigating whether he was suffering from depression and had felt slighted by film industry insiders and cliques.

More than a month later, Sushant Singh Rajput's father KK Singh filed a case in Bihar accusing his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family of cheating his son financially, mentally harassing him and driving him to suicide.

The Bihar Police complaint led to investigations by the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the actor's financial status and his father's complaint that crores were taken out of his account. Allegations of drug abuse uncovered by the ED triggered a probe by the NCB as well.

Rhea Chakraborty, who was arrested earlier this month along with her brother and several others in the drug case, has denied Sushant Singh's father's charges. She was described by the NCB as "an active member of a drug syndicate" and accused of organising drugs for Sushant Singh Rajput.

The CBI and the ED, however, have not arrested anyone so far and it remains clear if they have uncovered proof to back claims by Sushant Singh Rajput's family against Rhea Chakraborty including those involving "suspicious transactions" worth Rs 15 crore.