Sushant Singh Rajput: Rhea Chakraborty on ‘media process’ after Bollywood star dies

Just two months after Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his Mumbai apartment, his actress girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty found herself at the center of a brutal hate campaign led by some of India’s most notable journalists and trolls on social media.

Rajput was a rising star in the popular Hindi film industry in India, and his death shocked India. His body was discovered in his bedroom on June 14. Mumbai police said the 34-year-old appeared to have taken his own life, and reports in the press suggested that the actor was dealing with mental health issues.

But within days, the attention generated by his death had shifted to Chakraborty. She has become the subject of gossip and insanity and misogynistic abuse. Every little detail of their life and relationship has been publicly laid out and debated.

Under the post, she wrote: “I was called a gold digger, I kept quiet. I was called a murderer, I kept quiet. I was sly ashamed, I kept quiet.” She pleaded for help from the police for cybercrime.

Although there is no evidence that Chakraborty has committed a crime, and Rajput’s death is still being investigated, many of the press have already convicted the actress, said senior lawyer Supreme Supreme Meenakshi Arora.

“She has been hanged, drawn and quartered,” Arora said, referring to a form of grim punishment handed down in medieval Britain for high treason.

“It’s a full trial by the media. It’s the job of the investigation and the courts, it’s not the job of the media to try them. Legally this is so wrong,” she said.

Payal Chawla, a lawyer, said: “The reporting is terribly alarming. This tumultuous rousing, this voyeurism, this attempt to satisfy public desire for gossip is enormously problematic.

“It also shows how easy it is to hang women out on any occasion. The problem is not whether she’s guilty or not, what I find problematic is this kind of provision, the bullying, the guards who are her. apply for arrest. “

According to reports, Chakraborty and Rajput started dating in the summer of last year and moved in together in December. On June 8, a week before Rajput’s death, Chakraborty went to stay with her parents and was not home when the actor killed himself.

A month after his death, she wrote about her grief in an Instagram post.

“Still struggling to get my emotions under control … an irreparable numbness in my heart … I will never care that you are not here anymore,” she wrote.

She told journalist Barkha Dutt that Chakraborty had been Rajput’s ‘strongest supporter’ and said the actor was “dependent on her as a mother figure”.

Her statement led many to question whether Walker had breached the doctor’s patient confidentiality. It also put the spotlight on the mistakes in the coverage of the Indian media about sensitive issues such as suicide.

“The tragedy of the actor’s death is terrible, but look what we have done on the issue of mental health,” Ms Chawla said.

“It is wrong to assume that a performing individual could not have mental health problems. There are so many examples, such as John Nash and Robin Williams, who were high-performing individuals and had mental health problems.”

Nash, a gifted American mathematician, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Williams, an American comedian and actor, took his own life in 2014.

“She is an accused, but in a way she has now become a victim,” Ms Arora said. “We do not know if she is guilty or not, but the media process seriously jeopardizes her chances. It will also put extreme pressure on the judge who has to try this case.”

The coverage had been “reckless”, she said, and “focused on sensationality to get viewership”.

This is not the first time the Indian press has left with a high profile case, the waters mud with their own investigations. The slow pace of Indian judicial power and the nation’s weak defamation laws could deter those who are wronged by the press, and discourage them from seeking damages, Ms Arora said. She called for the court system to issue a gag order in the Chakraborty case.

“This is obstruction of criminal law,” she said, “and the press should be asked to refrain from a media trial.”