IMAGE: Sooraj Pancholi with his mother Zarina Wahab. Photograph: Kind courtesy Sooraj Pancholi/Instagram
A special CBI court acquitted Sooraj Pancholi on April 28, accused of abetting the suicide of his then actor girlfriend Jiah Khan in 2013, citing lack of evidence against him.
Sooraj Pancholi, 32, who is currently out on bail, was charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 306 (abetment of suicide).
Jiah Khan’s mother Rabia Khan had been refuting the prosecution’s case that this was a case of suicide and claimed that her daughter was killed.
CBI court Judge A S Sayyad said due to lack of evidence, the court holds Pancholi not guilty.
Sooraj, actor couple Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab’s son, was present in the court with his mother at the time of the verdict.
Sooraj had been arrested in June 2013 and released on bail the next month.
Jiah, 25, an American citizen, was found dead at her Juhu home, north west Mumbai, on June 3, 2013. The police arrested Sooraj on the basis of a six-page letter, purportedly written by the starlet.
In his final statement to the court on April 12, 2023, Sooraj had said he had been booked in a false case and that he was the victim of a false prosecution and persecution.
In that statement, he said he had broken down when he heard about Jiah’s death and said, ‘I had lost the most important person of my life and the woman whom I truly loved.’
Meanwhile, Sooraj’s mother Zarina Wahab tells Subhash K Jha: “Finally, Satyamev Jayate! God is great! I always had the greatest faith in our judiciary. Now it has been further strengthened.”
“It has been 10 years of torture, trauma and stigma for my son. Sooraj lost so much work because of his under-trial status. He can finally live a normal life. But who will give him back the 10 years that he has lost?”
