Jiah Khan: Does ordered CBI probe validate allegation of murder?

Rabia Khan’s crusade to find justice for her daughter received an unexpected boost yesterday when the Bombay high court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct a probe into the death of Bollywood actress Jiah Khan. When Khan’s body was discovered hanging from a ceiling fan on June 3, 2013, the police had initially concluded that she had committed suicide – a finding her family has since vociferously challenged over the past year. [caption id=“attachment_1602711” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Image from Twitter[/caption] Rabia has long been insistent that her daughter was murdered, pointing her finger at Jiah’s boyfriend Suraj Pancholi, but to little avail. Pancholi was instead charged with abetment to suicide. The CBI steadfastly refused her request to launch an independent probe, prompting the Khans to turn to the courts for redress, which they received today. The Times of India reports,

The high court slammed the CBI for opposing the transfer of investigations with its claim that it did not have adequate manpower and machinery. “If the CBI takes such a stand one wonders where a citizen of this country’s supposed to go when the state machinery is found deficient in protecting its citizens,” the judges said while expressing “displeasure” at the agency’s statement. The court has asked the CBI to carry out further probe and submit its report to the court.

The court, however, made it clear that its ruling should not be interpreted as a judgement on the circumstances of Jiah’s death. Rather, it has asked the CBI to make that determination, and establish whether it was a suicide or murder. While the ruling does not affirm the points raised by the independent forensic reports submitted by the Khan family, it certainly gives them sufficient credence to demand their investigation. They point to a number of anomalies which at least raise the possibility of murder, according to the Khans. As Tehelka reported back in October 2013, one key claim made by the family lawyer Dinesh Tiwari is that the so-called suicide note is no such thing: Jiah was not talking about committing suicide but leaving Bollywood. They also raised issues with the police’s theory of suicide:

More details, as a result of an independent forensic analysis, have emerged: there were deeper lesions on Jiah’s neck at the time of her death, separate from those caused by the muslin dupatta she allegedly hung herself with. She would also have needed a stool to hang herself from the fan in her bedroom, but no such piece of furniture was available anywhere in her home. In the pictures of her daughter’s body that Rabia released this week, Jiah’s eyes and tongue do not protrude from her face, as is usually the case in deaths caused by hanging.

The latest TOI report points to other issues: injury marks on her face and her arm; ligature marks that do not point to a person hanging herself, and a blood patch which Rabia claimed to have found in one of the other rooms in their flat. It is too early to conclude if the Khans family are indeed correct in alleging murder, and certainly none of the evidence they’ve raised means Suraj is the culprit, or that his family pressured the police to cover up his crime (as Rabia insists). But the fact that yet another prominent death has ended in a legal mess underlines the sorry state of criminal inquiry in this country. Be it Sunanda Pushkar or Jiah Khan, the police seems incapable of conducting a professional and thorough investigation that inspires confidence in its findings. And that the only other recourse is to trust a CBI – itself tainted by political manipulation – is a sad commentary on the state of law and order in this country.