Six years after Disha Salian died following a fall from a Mumbai high-rise, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has registered an FIR in the case, marking a dramatic reopening of a matter long treated as a straightforward suicide. The FIR, filed under provisions relating to murder, gang rape, criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and furnishing false information, comes after the Bombay High Court transferred the probe to the CBI on September 2, sharply criticising Mumbai Police for failing to register a case for six years and noting what it called “glaring discrepancies” in the original inquiry. Salian, who had worked as a celebrity manager and briefly represented actor Sushant Singh Rajput, died on June 8, 2020, after falling from the 14th floor of a residential building in Mumbai’s Malad area.
Among those whose roles are listed for investigation in the FIR are Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, his father and former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, actors Rhea Chakraborty, Dino Morea and Sooraj Pancholi, Rhea’s brother Showik Chakraborty, former state home minister Anil Deshmukh, and former police officials Param Bir Singh and Sachin Vaze. An alleged conspiracy to construct and circulate a false suicide narrative and to suppress or fabricate evidence, and also names police personnel, forensic staff and doctors connected to Salian’s post-mortem. Being named in the FIR does not establish guilt, and the conduct of every individual listed will now be examined as part of the CBI’s investigation.
The renewed push for accountability was driven largely by Salian’s father, Satish Salian, who approached the Bombay High Court alleging that his daughter had been raped and murdered and that influential figures had helped cover up the crime; he is reported to have recorded his statement before the CBI last week. The case drew intense public scrutiny at the time because Rajput himself was found dead just six days after Salian, on June 14, 2020, though the two cases were investigated separately by authorities. With the CBI now seeking records from the original probe, the investigation is expected to scrutinise not only the circumstances of Salian’s death but also how police and forensic officials handled the case in the years that followed.
