Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at this Mumbai home on June 14.

Mumbai/ New Delhi:

Actor Rhea Chakraborty’s lawyer has accused Sushant Singh Rajput’s family of trying to interfere in the CBI probe into his death, a day after reporters were told by the Rajputs’ lawyer that an AIIMS doctor has said the 34-year-old actor was strangled to death. The doctor was a part of the AIIMS team that conducted forensic tests in the case, he said.

Vikas Singh, Sushant Singh Rajput’s family’s lawyer, on Friday tweeted: “Getting frustrated by the delay in CBI taking a decision to convert abetment to suicide to Murder of SSR. The Doctor who is part of AIIMS team had told me long back that the photos sent by me indicated 200% that it’s death by strangulation and not suicide. (Sic)”

However, Dr Sudhir Gupta, AIIMS forensic team head, has said: “No findings given to CBI yet… final meeting has to be scheduled. No conclusive opinion could be made just by seeing pictures. Our opinion will be clear and conclusive based on evidence.”

Getting frustrated by the delay in CBI taking a decision to convert abetment to suicide to Murder of SSR. The Doctor who is part of AIIMS team had told me long back that the photos sent by me indicated 200% that it’s death by strangulation and not suicide.

— Vikas Singh (@vikassinghSrAdv) September 25, 2020

Responding to Mr Singh’s remarks, Rhea Chakraborty’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde today urged the CBI to constitute a new medical board in the case “to keep the investigations impartial and free from inference”.

In a statement, he said: “The disclosure of a 200 per cent conclusion by an AIIMS doctor in the team headed by Dr Gupta in the SSR case on the basis of photographs is a dangerous trend. To keep the investigations impartial and free from inference, the CBI must constitute a new medical board.”

“The agencies are being pressurised to reach a pre-determined result for obvious reasons on the eve of Bihar Elections. We have seen the VRS of DG Pandey unfolding a few days back. There should not be a repetition of such steps,” the statement further reads.

Mr Singh, after posting the tweet on Friday, at a news conference later in the day said, the pace of CBI probe into Sushant Singh Rajput’s death had “suddenly slowed down” and all attention was being diverted to drugs-related issues with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) conducting a “fashion parade” of Bollywood stars.

“Today, we are helpless as we don’t know which direction the case is going in. Normally a press briefing is done by CBI. But in this case, till today, CBI has not done a press briefing on what they have found out. This is a very serious issue,” Mr Singh said.

Several Bollywood stars – Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan, Shraddha Kapoor – are being questioned today in a drugs probe linked to Sushant Singh Rajput death. The 34-year-old actor was found dead at his Mumbai home on June 14.

More than a month later, Sushant Singh Rajput’s father KK Singh filed a case in Bihar accusing his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family of cheating his son financially, mentally harassing him and driving him to suicide.

Several probe agencies got involved; the case also led to a political row.

Rhea Chakraborty, who was arrested earlier this month along with her brother and several others in the drug case, has denied Sushant Singh’s father’s charges. She was described by the NCB as “an active member of a drug syndicate” and accused of organising drugs for Sushant Singh Rajput.