MUMBAI: By now, everyone who has been following the Jiah Khan suicide case would have read the alleged suicide note left by the beautiful 25 year-old actress, before she chose to end her life last Monday at her residence in Juhu. But the question on many people’s mind is: why now?
Why did Jiah Khan’s mother Rabiya Khan choose to reveal the suicide note to the press?
Understandably, Rabiya Khan allegedly stumbled upon the note, during a routine tidying up of her daughter’s room, amidst her sheets of poetry stashed in her wallet. Equally understandable that she decided to share the suicide note with the police, to help in their investigations.
But why share the note with the press?
As reported, Jiah Khan’s mother had sent out a press statement, with a note that intended to clarify the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s death. The note read: “Some sections of the media and some film industry people are speculating that my daughter Jiah committed suicide because of the depression related to her career. However the truth is that it only happened because of the trauma and the abuse she suffered in the hands of Suraj Pancholi and his father Aditya Pancholi.”
Many, from within the industry, and outsiders as well are of the opinion that this was a hasty decision on Rabiya Khan’s part. The fact that the alleged suicide letter speaks of intimate personal details, like the fact that Jiah had been abused, raped and tortured previously, and the humiliation she supposedly suffered at the hands of her boyfriend Sooraj Pancholi, certainly elicits these responses.
Jiah alleges in the letter that she had an abortion, and was constantly humiliated, berated and in an extreme case, physically and mentally abused by her boyfriend. The letter also hints that Sooraj was a constant womaniser, and didn’t care about the young star, as he was only interested in “partying, women and selfish motives”.
As a mother, shouldn’t Rabiya’s first instinct upon discovering the alleged suicide letter, have been to shield the memory of her daughter from all the ugliness that has been surrounding her death. Shouldn’t Rabiya have tried to protect her daughter’s reputation, instead of tarnishing her memory, and adding more sordid speculation to an already murky affair?
Was it because Rabiya Khan wanted to reiterate what she had been stating all along- that depression and career frustration were not the cause for her daughter’s death, and that it was Sooraj who was responsible? Or was it, in an unconscious way, an attempt to share the burden and gaping hole Jiah’s death must have left within her mother’s bosom?
Alas, we’ll never know what went through Jiah Khan’s mind the minute she decided to end her life and choose death. Whether it was career, her future, her past or her personal affairs that caused her to take such a drastic step. So perhaps it would have been less devastating for her fans and well wishers not to have unearthed the very sordid details of her personal life.
Perhaps this is where we must learn to draw the line, between curiosity and prurience.
