Bollywood / Somebody told me pics of Sushant's body suggest death by strangulation: Lawyer

New Delhi: Vikas Singh, the lawyer hired by Sushant Singh Rajput’s father, has commented on the newly accessed photos of the actor’s body, taken by his sister and submitted by the family to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The family claims the photographs differ from the ones that were taken by an unidentified person and subsequently shared on social media.

In an interview to Times Now, Vikas Singh doubled down on the murder theory and said, “I got some pictures earlier also on a WhatsApp group and I shared them with somebody in the forensic department, and he said that the pictures being circulated earlier were morphed.” The new pictures, accessed by Times Now and also shared with Vikas Singh, “are original pictures,” he said, as they have been taken by Sushant’s sister Meetu, who was among the first to arrive at his house on the day of his death.

Vikas Singh continued, “These lines on the neck, I got to know from somebody, these don’t look like a death by hanging at all. This looks like a death by strangulation.” He said more would be revealed once the forensic teams can analyse all the photos sent to them by the post-mortem team at the Cooper hospital and the Mumbai Police.

Sushant’s death case was recently taken over by the CBI, after the Mumbai Police ruled his death a suicide. A separate investigation into the financial angles is being carried out by the Enforcement Directorate, and the Narcotics Control Bureau is expected to investigate the drugs angle as well. Sushant’s father has accused his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty of abetting his suicide and siphoning off his funds.

Vikas Singh said that multiple pictures of the actor’s body were taken at both the site and during the post-mortem. “70 pictures were taken during the post-mortem,” he said, adding that the post-mortem report ‘has several serious loopholes’.

The lawyer also refuted the statements made by a member of Sushant’s house staff that the actor had consumed juice on the morning of his death, as the post-mortem report did not mention the presence of any juice in his stomach. Vikas Singh claimed to have spoken to a doctor, who had told him that if the death had happened within a few hours of Sushant having consumed the juice, it would have remained in his stomach.