Was Jiah Khan’s Suicide Staged? British Forensic Experts Think So

UK based forensic experts suggest that Jiah Khan’s death was not a simple case of suicide.

Late Bollywood actress Jiah Khan’s mother Rabya Khan has always maintained that her daughter had no reason to commit suicide. The 25 year old was found hanging in her Juhu apartment on 3 June 2013. Rabya has suspected foul play by Jiah’s ex-boyfriend Sooraj Pancholi, since the very beginning.

A new forensic investigation conducted by British experts hired by Rabya Khan, that might not be admissible in court, suggests that Jiah Khan’s hanging was staged and that it isn’t a simple case of suicide.

I very clearly remember one of the hearings in the High Court. The judge asked the police as to what was used by the deceased to commit suicide. The officer, after looking at the photograph of my daughter, replied: ‘I think it is a rope’. The sad part is that the irresponsible behaviour of the police towards my daughter’s case did not end there. When the High Court asked them to show the dupatta, they said that it was with the Forensic Science Laboratory for a dna test. But the FSL makes no mention about it. Also there was no mention about the whereabouts of the track suit used by my daughter. 

Rabya Khan, Jiah Khan’s Mother (As reported by DNA)

Also Read: Bollywood’s Gone Girl: Remembering the Talented Jiah Khan

According to a Mumbai Mirror report, Jason Payne-James of a UK based Forensic Healthcare Services Ltd. has made findings based on Jiah’s medical and post-mortem reports, photographs of her body and CCTV grabs of her room, that contradict the report submitted by the state’s forensic team during the investigation.

This crucial development comes almost a month after the CBI submitted its report in the Bombay High Court, ruling out murder and foul play in the case.

The state’s forensic experts had concluded that the injury marks on Jiah’s lower lip were probably the result of “friction with the teeth during the commission of the act [suicide]”. But according to Payne-James, the injuries “represent either abrasions or bruises”, and indicate “blunt force trauma to the mouth region (for example punching or a hand placed over the mouth)”.

The other point on which the British experts differs from the state’s findings is the ligature marks on Jiah’s neck. While the state had concluded them to be marks that were caused due to the slippage of ligature material (dupatta) slightly downwards or the ligature knot present at that site, Payne-James disagrees.

Also Read: Jiah Khan’s Mother Remembers Her With a Song

It would seem unlikely that the diffuse pressure of the dupatta around the neck would cause the well-defined abraded ligature mark seen. I would have expected any forensic specialist to have insisted on seeing the dupatta. I do not see that there is any realistic possibility of the dupatta creating the patterned injury under the chin. Other causes or objects should have been considered, such as a blunt impact from a patterned object, or a ligature made of different material. The marks on the left arm and the lower lip are consistent with assaultive injuries... the marks of ligature and the mark on the chin are not consistent with simple hanging with the dupatta.

Jason Payne-James’s forensic report states (as reported by Mumbai Mirror)

Payne-James has also accused the Indian forensic experts of not studying the medical evidence in the case thoroughly enough.

There are a number of serious misinterpretations (or exclusions of reasonable inferences) of the medical evidence, and that the apparent intention to attribute her death to suicide may mean that the real possibility of a staged hanging subsequent to earlier death at the hands of another has been missed.

Jason Payne-James, British Forensic Experts

Rabya’s counsel Dinesh Tiwari intends to approach the court with a request to take these new findings into consideration. But Aditya Pancholi, Sooraj Pancholi’s father and well known Bollywood actor, has questioned the report’s admissibility in court.

This report is from a private forensic lab and it’s paid. We will see if a court admits it or not. The investigations have been done by different agencies and all of them have come to the same conclusion [that it was a suicide].

Aditya Pancholi, Actor

While Aditya Pancholi was charged by the CBI for abetment to suicide in December last year, Jiah Khan’s mother had no option but to rope in a private agency to dig deep after the agency ruled out the possibility of Jiah Khan’s death being a murder in their report to the Bombay High Court.

(Source: Mumbai Mirror)