Disha Salian committed suicide, no foul play found in probe: Police tell HC

Mumbai Police told the Bombay High Court that Disha Salian died by suicide, with no signs of foul play, rejecting her father’s claims of gangrape and murder. The court will next hear the CBI probe plea, naming Aditya Thackeray, on July 16

Mumbai: Former celebrity manager Disha Salian committed suicide and no foul play has been found in her death, the Mumbai police have submitted to the Bombay High Court, even as her father Satish Salian reiterated she was gangraped and murdered.

Disha Salian had jumped off the window of a flat out of her own volition, and the postmortem report mentions no signs of sexual and/or physical assault on the deceased, the police said in an affidavit filed before the HC last month.

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She was under tremendous mental stress due to a dispute with her family and also because her business deals were not working out, the affidavit added.

The former celebrity manager died on June 8, 2020, after falling off the 14th floor of a residential building in Malad area of Mumbai. The city police had then registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR).

Satish Salian filed a petition in the HC in March this year, seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into his daughter’s death and an FIR against Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aditya Thackeray.

In the plea, he claimed his daughter was found dead under mysterious circumstances in June 2020. He alleged that she was raped and murdered and subsequently there was a politically orchestrated cover-up to protect certain influential persons.

The petition came up for hearing on Wednesday before a bench headed by Justice A S Gadkari, which posted it for further hearing on July 16.

The Malvani police, who probed the case first, in their affidavit, however, said Disha Salian had committed suicide. Disha Salian was under tremendous mental stress due to a dispute with her family and also because her business deals were not working out, said the affidavit filed by Malvani police station’s senior inspector Shailendra Nagarkar.

She was drunk at the time of the incident, and even her fiance, who was with her at the time, had ruled out any foul play or suspicion, it said. “I say that in the light of the circumstances and witness statements, the deceased Disha Salian out of her own volition jumped off the window of the flat and committed suicide,” the police officer said in the affidavit.

Even her postmortem report does not indicate anything suspicion about the death, the affidavit said.

The police also said the contentions raised by Satish Salian in his plea were baseless and unfounded. The closure report filed by the police was based on scientific investigation conducted and the postmortem report, they added.

“The report is conclusive in nature and mentions no signs of sexual and/or physical assault on the deceased,” the affidavit said.

It also claimed that after the closure report was filed, a Special Investigation Team was set up to further probe the case and even the SIT’s findings are coherent with the earlier findings of the police.

“However, further investigation is still being carried out,” the affidavit said.

Satish Salian, in an application submitted on Wednesday, however, said once information disclosing the commission of a cognisable offence is received, the police must register an FIR and then probe it. He said the SIT has been probing a serious case of gangrape and murder without first registering an FIR, which is grossly illegal.

There has been wilful disobedience of the court order as an affidavit was sought from the Maharashtra government’s chief secretary and not the police, he claimed.

Meanwhile, Aditya Thackeray has also filed an application, seeking to intervene in the matter and urged the court to grant him a hearing before passing any order.

Thackeray in his application claimed the petition filed by Satish Salian was false, frivolous and motivated.