A tragic farce

Film star Sushant Singh Rajput’s death was undoubtedly a tragedy. The blossoming career of a talented artiste, who had excelled in Bollywood against heavy odds, came to an abrupt end. The bigger tragedy is all that has happened in the months after he was found dead in his Mumbai apartment on June 14: a shoddy investigation that is making no headway; a no-holds-barred slanging match between Sushant’s peers; and a ruthless trial by the media. Three leading investigative agencies are on the job: the Central Bureau of Investigation is probing the abetment of suicide case after the Maharashtra Police were slammed by the media, while the Enforcement Directorate and the Narcotics Control Bureau are looking into the apparently related aspects of money laundering and drugs, respectively. Still, we are none the wiser about the hows and whys of the actor’s death. Instead, his short life has been dissected with shocking insensitivity, depriving his family and friends of dignity as well as privacy. No less painful is the ordeal of his girlfriend, Rhea Chakraborty, and her family. Even as the probe is in progress, she has been declared ‘guilty until proven innocent’ rather than the other way round. The presumption of innocence — the bedrock of the criminal justice system worldwide — has been perversely inverted.

The private lives of two actors have come under glaring scrutiny at a time when Indian economy is in a tailspin, there is no let-up in Covid cases, and the country’s troops are locked in a tense standoff with China. Amid such pressing issues, sensationalism has taken centre stage, dividing public opinion between two hashtags — #JusticeForSushant and #JusticeForRhea.

As if things were not bad enough, political parties have joined the despicable bandwagon. In poll-bound Bihar, the state Sushant hailed from, opportunists have latched on to the case in the hope of reaping electoral dividends. The media, above all, can’t escape culpability for having reduced an actor’s death to a sordid spectacle. The onus is on the probe agencies to find the truth expeditiously and bring down the curtain on this tragic farce.