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 The abrupt death of Sushant
Singh Rajput has spurred a debate about the
stigma of mental health, the rarefied insider
world of Bollywood, and, more recently,
condemnation of the media for the non-stop
coverage of the duelling accusations between
Rajput's family and his girlfriend.
Mumbai police initially reported Rajput's death
as accidental and local media called it a
suicide. But the federal police agency is now
investigating if there was any foul play and is
questioning Rajput's girlfriend, Rhea
Chakraborty, and others.
On Tuesday, Chakraborty was arrested by India's
narcotics department, which is investigating a
drugs case linked to the probe of Rajput's
death. She denies any wrongdoing and her lawyer,
Satish Maneshinde, called the arrest "a travesty
of justice".
Along the way, the story has become a media
obsession in India, fed by a wave of TV coverage
still swelling almost three months after Rajput,
34, was found dead in his Mumbai apartment.
In recent weeks, India's TV channels have given
more airtime to the Rajput case than India's
surging COVID-19 caseload, a plane crash and top
political stories, according to the Broadcast
Audience Research Council.
India's boisterous TV networks, which include
more than 350 news channels in English and
several local languages, have flashed photos of
Rajput's body, analysed his medical
prescriptions, even used voodoo dolls and
graphics of a skull to hype allegations that
"black magic" was performed on the actor.
The federal police, the High Court in Mumbai,
and the government watchdog Press Council of
India have all criticised coverage of the
investigation.
"I spent 21 years in television and I've never
seen a race to the bottom this bad," said Nidhi
Razdan, who recently left Indian news network
NDTV to teach journalism.
"It is a media trial. What else is it?" she
said. "I haven't seen this kind of viciousness
in coverage before."
'SICKENING'
Before his June 14 death, Rajput, most famous
for portraying India's cricket captain in a
biopic, and his girlfriend were more likely to
be depicted as a down-to-earth - if Bollywood-beautiful
- couple, cuddling tousled-haired at home or
sitting playfully in jeans on a rundown park
bench.
Chakraborty, 28, was regularly hounded by
reporters when she appeared in public, with news
commentators opining on her innocence or guilt.
Rajput's family claims she poisoned him, used
black magic and is responsible for his death.
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 "There has been a conspiracy to
break me and my family and my spirit,"
Chakraborty said in an interview with television
anchor Rajdeep Sardesai in late August. "It is
the systematic breakdown of an innocent family,
an innocent girl who loved an innocent boy."
On Sunday, she was jostled by a pack of
journalists as she tried to enter a narcotics
department office in Mumbai, where police
struggled to disperse the crowd.
"Sickening," journalist Swati
Chaturvedi wrote on Twitter. Alaka Sahani, a
senior Indian Express journalist, said, "The
visuals of Rhea being hounded makes my stomach
churn and puke."
The CBI, the federal police agency, said last
month it was investigating allegations of
abetment to suicide and criminal conspiracy. Its
announcement came after requests from Rajput's
family and Chakraborty.
In a statement last week, the CBI said some
media reports on its probe were "speculative"
and "not credible." The bureau, it said, "has
not shared any details of investigation with
media."
The Press Council of India has urged the media
not to "conduct its own parallel trial."
Some television editors have
defended the coverage.
Arnab Goswami, editor of Republic TV and a
widely watched anchor known for his
sharp-elbowed commentary, last week credited his
channel's coverage with ensuring that Rajput’s
death wasn’t “whitewashed” as a suicide.
"I pushed, I pressurised, I connected the dots,"
he told news website OpIndia. "In the process,
if I've done a media trial, I'm happy I have
done one."
Goswami did not respond to a request for comment
from Reuters. His main show, The Debate, ran
last week with the hashtag #ArrestRheaNext.
Soon after her arrest on Tuesday, the channel
started using the tag #RheaArrested.
(Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by
Aditya Kalra, William Mallard and Raju
Gopalakrishnan)
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