Disha Salian case: What really happened that night?

Who was Disha SalianDisha Salian was a 28yearold celebrity talent manager She had an impressive portfolio representing Bollywood actors Sushant Singh Rajput Varun Sharma Prachi Desai and Bharti Singh among othersThe fateful eventsOn the night of June 8 2020 the 28yearold Salian allegedly fell to her death from the 12th floor of her fianceacute Rohan Rairsquos apartment at Jankalyan Nagar in Malvani Malad West She is survived by her parents Vasanti and Satish SalianAbout Rai and SalianRai and Salian first met in 2013 after he moved to Mumbai from Delhi He was a model In 2017 the couple got engaged at Salianrsquos parentsrsquo home in central Mumbai In 2018 Rai bought a twobedroom apartment in the Malad highrise where they moved in togetherThe leadupOn June 6 2020 Salianrsquos college friend Himanshu Shikre who lived nearby visited Rairsquos apartment The following day Salian and her childhood friend Indraneel Vaidya whose birthday was on May 25 had a joint birthday celebration at the RaiSalian home Salianrsquos birthday was on May 26 The gathering included Shikre Vaidya Resha Padwal and another friend Deep AjmeraSatish Salianrsquos lawyer Nilesh Ojha PICANURAG AHIREDespite the lockdown the friends held on to the tradition of celebrating their birthdays together On June 7 all six of them partied That night Shikre Padwal Vaidya and Ajmera stayed over at Rairsquos apartment The group decided to extend the celebrations to the next day June 8Party onMost of June 8 was spent attending work calls At dayrsquos end they started drinking and ordered pizzas The party was in full swing eventually with music and dancing tooThe London callAround 11 pm Salian received a FaceTime call from her close friend Ankita who lived in London Salian moved to her bedroom away from the noise Their conversation lasted 70 minutes while the party continued in the living room Rai said in a 2022 interview that by the end of the call Salian was emotionalSushant Singh Rajput the most highprofile of Disha Salianrsquos clients whose death a week after hers sparked a furoreWhere was DishaBy this time everyone seemed to be high The friends checked on Salian but she was in the bathroom They returned to the living room A few minutes later they looked for her again but in vain The bathroom door was open They looked for her in the house but could not find her They noticed after a few minutes that the sliding windows of the master bedroom were open When Rai peeped out he saw her lifeless below The friends took her to hospital where she was declared dead though some reports claimed that she was alive when foundWhat happened laterThe case was in the news for a few days since Salian was wellknown because of her celebrity connect and the nature of the death shocked many Conjecture gossip and social media posts added theory upon theory The Mumbai police registered an Accidental Death Report ADR at that timeThe Sushant connectionThen a week later on June 14 2020 actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his Bandra home He was 34 years old The cause of his death was ruled a suicide with reports saying he died of asphyxia by hanging Controversy was ablaze with speculation of murder Social media and television channels too exploded with theories that Rajput had known something about Disha Salianrsquos death that both were linked and that he had been killed to be silenced So fiercely did this rage on that at one time opinion was cleaved between those who believed that Rajput died by suicide and that he was murdered because he would spill the beans on Salian A final postmortem report on June 25 2020 reiterating the cause of death did little to quell the speculation which was now in overdrive Some reports said Rajput was upset and depressed about Salianrsquos death others claimed he was threatened and yet others maintained that he was killedRegent Galaxy the Malad highrise from where Sushant Singhrsquos manager Disha Salian allegedly fell to her death in June 2020 PicsShadab KhanInvestigations and closureSalianrsquos parents accepted the police investigation which concluded suicide as the cause of death Rajputrsquos death and the claims that followed however led to a reinvestigation The final closure report reaffirmed suicide with no note found Statements from Salianrsquos friends parents and all those who visited the building between June 4 and June 9 2020 were recorded Additionally statements of everyone who called her on or before the day of the incident were documentedCall data records CCTV footage of the building and a clone of Disharsquos mobile phone data were preserved Statements from witnesses relatives and friends were also considered Based on all collected evidence it was concluded that ADR number 852020 registered with Malvani police was a case of suicide The reason for the suicide was not explicitly disclosed and no suicide note was found The police recorded detailed statements of Salianrsquos parents who did not raise any complaints leading to the registration of an Accidental Death Report ADRWhy again nowNow controversy has reignited after five years of Disha Salianrsquos death with her father moving the Bombay High Court seeking a fresh investigation Satish Salian also lodged a written complaint with the Mumbai Police Commissioner for the registration of an FIR against Aaditya Thackeray and others accused of offences including gangrape and murder He claims now that for a variety of reasons he had been misled earlier into thinking there was no foul play and political names are once again being bandied aboutThe updateThis paper recently reported that Disha Salianrsquos father who filed a petition accusing certain highprofile persons in his daughterrsquos death was named in the earlier police closure report as a factor contributing to his daughterrsquos state of depression on the night of her death The closure report stated among other things that her father had misused his daughterrsquos earnings spending the money on a female employee at his spicemaking unit in ThaneSatish Salianrsquos lawyer Nilesh Ojha said in response to this that as per the binding judgment of the Supreme Court any closure report filed in an inquiry under Section 174 CrPC Accidental Death ReportADR has no evidentiary value and cannot be relied upon by the accused in cases where cognisable offences are clearly disclosed Therefore the earlier closure report holds no legal weight Ojha addedWith inputs by Mohar Basu and Samiullah Khan