Sushant Singh Rajput case: ED to question Sushant’s roommate Siddharth Pithani
Enforcement Directorate is investigating the angle of money laundering in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. Sushant’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty was interrogated for 9 hours in this regard. Along with Rhea, her brother Showik, Sushant’s manager Shruti Modi and CA Ritesh Shah was also interrogated. Likewise, Sushant’s roommate Siddharth Pithani will also be interrogated.
FollowMumbai: Enforcement Directorate is investigating the angle of money laundering in case of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. Sushant’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty was interrogated for 9 hours in this regard. Along with Rhea, her brother Showik, Sushant’s manager Shruti Modi and CA Ritesh Shah was also interrogated. In the same regard, Sushant’s roommate Siddharth Pithani will also be interrogated. Sushant’s father has alleged that Rhea and her family invested Rs 15 crore in their company from his son’s account.
The statements of all these persons are being recorded. Pithani who used to handle Sushant’s social media accounts was living with Sushant for more than a year. It was Pithani who first spotted Sushant’s dead body. Pithani has recorded his statement three times in the Accidental Death Report filed by the Mumbai Police.
On Friday, a team from ED reached Rhea’s home. Rhea lives in a 1-BHK flat. According to sources, the value of the flat is estimated to be around Rs 84 lakh. Rhea had booked the flat for herself in 2018 and had taken a loan of Rs 60 lakh for the same. The ED team has collected some evidence and questioned the neighbours.
ED has questioned Sushant’s Charted Accountant Sandeep Shreedhar and Personal Manager Samuel Miranda twice. ED questioned Rhea for around 9 hours and Rhea’s brother for around 2 hours. Rhea has said that the allegations of her withdrawing Rs 15 crore from Sushant’s account are baseless. She told the investigating agency that she too has worked in 7 films and earned money from them. Rhea had requested officials to postpone the inquiry, but her request was turned down.
CBI held a long meeting with a member of Patna’s Special Investigation The team on Friday. All the evidence gathered by SIT was carefully studied. Rhea had requested transfer of the case filed in Patna to Mumbai. Sushant's father KK Singh, on July 26, filed a case against Rhea, her parents, her brother Showik, Miranda, Modi, and unknown people of cheating and abetting Sushant’s suicide.
The investigation carried out by the SIT of Patna Police has revealed few important aspects. According to the team, Sushant was worried about money being consistently debited from his account. According to sources, on one occasion, when Rhea was seated along with Sushant, the actor suddenly mentioned that money was being debited from his account. Then instead of directly talking to Rhea, Sushant said to his cook that they are spending too much money and asked them to reduce expenses. Rhea had apparently heard this.
Bihar Police in its affidavit filed in Supreme Court has said that one of its team had gone to Mumbai to investigate the case but Mumbai Police did not cooperate with Patna Police in the investigation. Mumbai Police did not hand over the post-mortem report, the forensic science lab (FSL) report, CCTV footage, the inquiry report, and other vital documents to Patna Police, it alleged. Mumbai Police have only registered the case of Sushant’s death.
The Patna Police team has said in court that it is also investigating the case of fraud and blackmailing and the two cases are separate. In the affidavit, it is said that Sushant’s relatives believe that a doctor is also involved in the conspiracy along with Rhea. In their investigation, they found that a sum of Rs 17 crores was transferred from Sushant’s Kotak Mahindra bank account into the accounts of people related to Rhea.
