Actor Jiah Khan,25,kills herself

The British-Indian actor,who had changed her name to Jiah from Nafisa,made her debut in 2007 in Ram Gopal Verma’s Nishabd,starring opposite Amitabh Bachchan. She had acted in two other Hindi films,Ghajini and Housefull.

Jiah had signed a three-film deal in south India and the first of those is due to release this month. Police said she had returned from an audition in Hyderabad a few days ago.

Police said that the suicide did not seem planned and suspect that it was dejection in professional and personal life that could have led her to take the drastic step.

They said they had scanned her phone call records,text messages,CCTV images from her building,and recorded statements of her family and friends,including her boyfriend Suraj Pancholi,the son of actor Aditya Pancholi.

“The cause of death is asphyxia due to hanging and it occurred after 10 pm on Monday and before midnight,” said Dr T P Lahane,dean of the J J Group of Hospitals. He said there were no injuries on her body and no sign of alcohol or drugs.

Police said Jiah’s last phone call ended at 10:53 pm and was made to Suraj. Rabiya has told the police that her daughter was in a relationship with Suraj for the last eight months and he often visited Jiah’s family at their Sagar Sangeet apartment. DCP Cherring Dorje said the couple were apparently going through a rough patch and had misunderstandings due to another female friend.

Police said CCTV images from Jiah’s building showed Suraj’s domestic help entering the building with a flower bouquet for Jiah about half-an-hour after Rabiya left home at around 8.30 pm.

The bouquet was returned by the watchman after he took instructions from Jiah. “We will examine the CCTV footage of the entire day again to check if Suraj visited Jiah. We are also planning to question his domestic help again,” Dorje said.

Rabiya has told the Juhu police that Jiah was also unhappy about her career trajectory as no good scripts were coming her way. Jiah had auditioned for a Telugu film in Hyderabad and had apparently been told that she needed to gain weight to bag the role.

She had returned to Mumbai upset and was trying to gain weight,her mother told the police. Jiah lived with her mother while her sister visited them often from New York.

“Suraj and Jiah had been exchanging phone calls and messages all day on Monday. Jiah’s last few text messages to Suraj read,‘why are you getting so cold’ ,‘are you dating Neelu’,‘we have misunderstandings between us,are you meeting me’,” said an officer from the Juhu police station.

“The fights on the phone and through text messages are the trigger behind the suicide but there is a history behind her depression,” said Vishwas Nangre Patil,additional commissioner of police (west region). “Suraj says they had fights like all couples did. On Monday evening,Jiah had come to see him at his house but she was returned from the gate as he was busy.”