Updated: October 7, 2020 9:10:36 am
Sushant Singh Rajput, was found hanging in his apartment in the suburbs of Bandra on June 14.
TWO DAYS after a medical board at AIIMS confirmed that actor Sushant Singh Rajput had died by suicide, Maharashtra Interior Minister Anil Deshmukh said Tuesday that action would be taken against social media accounts that had defamed him. Mumbai Police Online.
“We have asked the Mumbai police to investigate the accounts that defamed the image of the Mumbai police on social media,” Deshmukh told reporters.
The minister was referring to allegations on social media that the actor, who was found hanged in his home on June 14, had been murdered, and that the state administration, including Cooper Hospital, where the autopsy was performed, and Mumbai Police, were attempting to falsely portray the death as suicide.
Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said police have been tracking “fake accounts” that have been forcibly “defaming” and have already registered two FIRs. “Our social media labs have been tracking these bogus accounts that have been smearing us since August,” Singh told The Indian Express. “Our cyber police have registered two FIRs in the case. There are thousands of accounts of this type, including some that were being operated from outside the country to carry out this smear campaign against the police, ”said the commissioner.
Deshmukh told a news conference that a recent study had found the hand of the BJP and some news channels in “promoting conspiracy theories.” “The University of Michigan had reviewed the Sushant Singh Rajput case and found the hand of the BJP in promoting conspiracy theories surrounding the Sushant Singh case,” he said.
“Some news channels have also been named in this study. There is a national party that has been responsible for this campaign to smear Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s Maharashtra. A supari was given to damage the prestige of Maharashtra, ”Deshmukh said.
The study Deshmukh was referring to, ‘Anatomy of a Rumor: Social Media and the Suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput’, has been posted on a prepress server and is not peer-reviewed. It has been done by five people who have declared their affiliation to “Microsoft Research, India”.
There was no immediate clarity on the association of the University of Michigan in the United States with the study.
“It is disheartening to see that even someone who ran the state for five years like Devendra Fadnavis also doubted the same Mumbai Police that was under his command all these years. Now that everything is clear, they should apologize to the people of Maharashtra. If not, they will never be forgiven by those who live in Maharashtra, ”Deshmukh said.
“I want to know if Fadnavis (who oversees the BJP campaign for the Bihar Assembly elections) will campaign for the former Bihar DGP Gupteshwar Pandey, who took over VRS and joined the JD (U) led by CM Nitish Kumar, Who insulted Maharashtra? “
In response, BJP leader Atul Bhatkhalkar tweeted a video in which he said: “The government should carry out an investigation to show that they have brought false charges against the BJP and Fadnavis. Once the charges are established as false, they must apologize to the people of Maharashtra. “
When asked if the Mumbai police, based on Deshmukh’s statements, would register an FIR against members of any political party, Commissioner Singh said: “The investigation is in an early stage and we do not know what role will come to the fore. now. However, we will charge whoever is responsible for this campaign ”.
Singh added: “From day one we have been saying that apart from the five or six policemen involved in the investigation, no one has even seen what we have investigated and yet they consider themselves competent to make accusations against us. Only the Supreme Court Justice Justice Hrishikesh Roy, who heard Rhea Chakraborty’s request to transfer the FIR against her registered by the Bihar Police to the Mumbai Police, saw our investigation report and was satisfied with what we had said. done. We don’t need anyone else’s approval. “
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