#CBIFor SSR Is Proving To Be Yet Another Damp Squib

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The 2020 Bihar assembly polls are over and it is the NDA which has warded off anti-incumbency to return to power once again thwarting off a strong challenge by Mahagathbandhan led by RJD’s  Tejashwi Yadav .  But before the Bihar went to the polls there was one issue that hogged the national limelight – that was the untimely death of 34-year-old Bollywood actor from the state of Bihar – Sushant Singh Rajput. Being a Rajput and a potential big star in the making his sudden death shocked many not only in Bollywood . And political parties eager to cash in on the Rajput vote  came out in full support for SSR and demanded investigation on his death. He found dead at his home in Mumbai on June 14.

SSR death suddenly saw the Bihar politicians cutting across parties the likes of Pappu Yadav, Sushil Modi, Ravi Shankar Prasad, R K Singh, Tejashwi Yadav , Chirag Paswan unite for the first time . The pressure forced incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar after request from the late actor’s family to order a CBI probe .

The demand for CBI probe was done in relentless way by Republic TV with its anchor Arnab Goswami launching virtually global campaign with the hashtag #CBIforSSR. After two months of relentless campaign The Supreme Court On August 19 ordered CBI probe into the death. The Maharashtra had resisted the CBI probe and instead backed the Mumbai police to deal with the case. The case was handed over to the CBI with an assumption it would end the mystery of the case . The handing over the case to the CBI was necessitated by reports  in the media of the the mishandling of the probe at various counts by the Mumbai police.

Action did kick-start with CBI filing FIR against six persons – Rhea Chakraborty, Indrajit Chakraborty, Sandhya Chakraborty, Showik Chakraborty, Samuel Miranda, Shruti Modi. The Enforcement directorate to jumped into the probe bandwagon to find about siphoning off of Rs 15 cr by Rhea Chakraborty as alleged by SSR’s father in his FIR. But after intense investigation it was revealed that the Rs 15 crore transaction talk was all verbal and money was not transferred at all. So the question of siphoning off does not arise at all.

But soon after the NCB joined the probe and the issue got diverted with the Bollywood Drug expose . The drug angle shifted away from the main focus – SSR – did he die by hanging or commit suicide? NCB began a star- studded probe and it saw the likes of Sara Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor grilled over alleged drug chats.

Soon Rhea Chakraborty was arrested by the NCB and after spending a month in Byculla jail she was granted bail by Bombay HC . Her brother Showik though remains in custody. These were other names like Sandip S Singh, director Mahesh Bhatt and karan Johar named movie mafia actress Kangana Ranaut. But mysteriously the mentioned names were not grilled by the agencies involved in the probe.

Republic TV ran vicious negative campaign against her day in and day out with a hashtag #arrestRhea. Republic TV’s covergae of the SSR case did not go unnoticed by the courts too. The Bombay High Court asked Republic TV whether “asking the public about their opinion on who should be arrested” is a part of “investigative journalism”. The court was hearing PILs over the “media trial” being conducted in the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The bench asked the question to Republic’s counsel Malvika Trivedi in reference to the channel using the hashtag #ArrestRhea during its coverage.

Further, The Bombay High Court asked if it was the media’s job to proffer advice to an investigating agency about how it should conduct a probe. The remark was made by a bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni. “Is it duty of media to advise an investigating agency? It is the duty of the investigating officer to apply his mind (in the probe),” the court said.

Now close to four months since taking over the CBI is yet to conclude or state which way the case is heading to. During the poll campaign the SSR death case was completely ignored by all the parties concerned. A report by seven member panel of doctors led by Sudhir Gupta unanimously concluded that SSR died by suicide and not murder. IF this is the revelation made by AIIMS then why is the CBI not making any statement regarding the case ? what is the status of it now. This delay has disheartened the SSR fans who are eager to know the truth.

CBI’s silence on the SSR case has once again begun to point fingers at the credibility of the country’s premier investigation. Now the Bihar political league is truly over and it is time SSR case is finally revealed so that he can rest in peace.

Lastly, One would hence hope that the SSR case does not go the  vyapam scam probe in Madhya Pradesh way. It too like the SSR case was handed over to the CBI by the Supreme Court five years ago. Yet it has seen no big arrest on the said case till date . If this happens to the SSR case  then it would be a slap on the face on the eccentric anchor who in his prime time debate’s was all gung-ho about CBI and created a unnecessary hype without looking at the agency’s previous very poor track record in the past.