Day after arrest, Rhea Chakraborty sent to Byculla Jail for 14 days

A day after she was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a drugs case related to the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, Bollywood actor Rhea Chakraborty was shifted to Mumbai’s Byculla Jail on Wednesday. She has been sent to judicial custody till September 22.

Rhea was arrested on charges of procuring drugs along with Sushant Singh Rajput and paying for the same. She is the tenth person to be arrested in the case, after her brother Showik, Rajput’s former cook Dipesh Sawant and former housekeeper Samuel Miranda, among others.

Based on statements by Chakraborty’s brother Showik, and Rajput’s cook and housekeeper, who were arrested earlier, the NCB said drugs were procured on the directions of both her and Rajput, and that both paid for them, thus establishing that “she (Chakraborty) was an active member of (a) drug syndicate connected with drug supplies”. No narcotics have been recovered from either Chakraborty or Showik.

Late on Tuesday evening, the court rejected Chakraborty’s bail application, sending the 28-year-old to judicial custody for 14 days. NCB Deputy Director General Mutha Ashok Jain had said earlier that they would not seek her custodial remand as they had already questioned her.

Criticising the arrest, her lawyer Satish Maneshinde said in a statement: “This is a travesty of justice, with three central agencies hounding a single woman just because she was in love with a drug addict, (who) was suffering from mental health issues for several years, (was) under the care of five leading psychiatrists in Mumbai and ended up committing suicide due to consumption of illegally administered medicines and used drugs.”

Chakraborty has said in the past that Rajput, whom she was seeing, regularly took marijuana and she had discouraged him from it as he was taking medications for mental issues.