Mumbai: Rabia Khan, mother of Bollywood actress Jiah Khan started an online signature campaign to reach out PM Narendra Modi for justice.
It may be noted that Jiah Khan was found hanging in her room on June 3, 2013. A week later, the Juhu police had arrested Sooraj Pancholi for abetment to suicide. However, he was later released on bail.
According to the report published in India Today, after consulting forensic experts aboard who suggested that it was a clear case of murder, Ms. Rabia knocked at the doors of the Bombay High Court. Later, the court had transferred the case to the CBI. However, after investigation, CBI also came to a conclusion that it was a case of suicide.
Ms. Rabia who was not satisfied with CBI investigation approached the court again for SIT which was rejected. As the trial of suicide case is about to start, she appealed to PM for justice.
It may be noted that earlier, Sooraj Pancholi’s parents, Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab, and sister Sana filed a defamation case against Ms. Rabia.
Following is the full text of the letter written by Jiha Khan’s mother Rabia Khan:
Dear Prime Minister,
I am the mother of Jiah Khan, who was murdered in Mumbai on 3rd June 2013. Despite clear signs of foul play at the crime scene, the local police declared it a suicide. After the initial traumatic shock from the loss of my daughter, it became clear to me that the “investigation” by Juhu Police was entirely sabotaged in order to benefit the Accused, for reasons best known to them.
With tireless support from my advocate Mr Dinesh Tiwari, I moved the Bombay High Court in October 2013, with all the forensic evidence that I have obtained from experts in India and England that is pointing towards homicide. Analysis of the forensic experts shows that the injuries on my daughter’s body are inconsistent with the alleged suicidal hanging and the forensic evidence strongly suggest that she was murdered and then hanged to make it look like a suicide.
Since then, it has been four years now that I had been persistent fighting for justice. The Hon’ble Bombay High Court, in July 2014 heard my petition and prayer for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), supposedly the premier investigating agency in India, to investigate my daughter’s death. The case was transferred to the CBI with a clear mandate to find out whether my daughter’s death was homicidal or suicidal, and, if it was found to be homicidal, to launch a further investigation and take appropriate action.
For some reason, CBI was reluctant to take over the case from the beginning, and in fifteen months of delay in their findings, the CBI investigation got compromised. It would be an insult to the capabilities of the CBI to say that CBI just failed to conduct a proper investigation. There is no doubt CBI has all the powers and skills required to get to the bottom of my daughter’s death. But somehow, the CBI investigation went off track, for reasons best known to them.
Even CBI’s own independent forensic expert opinion from PGI was inconclusive and does not rule out either homicide or suicide. The CBI had been misleading me about the direction of their investigation ever since the first meeting with the participation of two representatives of the US Consulate in Mumbai, Rachel Sunden and Kenneth D’Mello, on 10th February 2015 at my residence in Juhu, Mumbai.
Anyone looking at the actual facts in this case realizes that the case has been heavily “managed”. It is not my task to speculate about the police’s and the CBI’s motivation, but a connection and the influence of the Accused’s father Aditya Pancholi would not be too far-fetched.
UK-based forensic expert Jason Payne James clearly states in his report that this appears to be a staged homicide. So I approached the Hon’ble High Court earlier this year with all the relevant grievances and expert reports requesting reinvestigation by an SIT. CBI strongly opposed, but the Hon’ble High Court noted in its order that all the points raised in my petition can be submitted to the trial court.
I submitted the application 95 to the trial court through the State-appointed Special Public Prosecutor Mr Dinesh Tiwari who knows the history of this case from the beginning. During the argument in the trial court the Hon’ble Judge asked the CBI why evidence like crime scene photographs, mention of ligature, call logs, Blackberry phone text messages, GPS and expert reports were not part of their supplementary report? Following this submission, the CBI has been trying to remove SPP Tiwari and to replace him with one of its own prosecutors who has no knowledge about the case and has been displaying a hostile attitude towards me.
Recently, when my application to submit key evidence and forensic expert reports was argued in the trial court the CBI, along with the Accused, strongly opposed the application being accepted by the court. How is justice going to be served, if the prosecution CBI has teamed up with the Accused to suppress evidence?
The forensic report by Jason Payne-James and a report by Professor Deborah Barneveld which highlight what CBI has ignored to investigate and denied justice to the victim’s family. It is in this light that I have no other recourse than to plead to you about the case of my daughter Jiah. My grief, my pain as a mother is not just words, truth and justice must be surfaced and served and only you the honourable Prime minister have the power to ensure this. May God guide you to help us. Please let me know what are your plans and advice for the victim’s mother and family to grant them a closure. May almighty God bless you and the nation India. (sic)
Sincerely yours,Rabia Khan, victim Jiah Khan’s mother