Were Bollywood actresses targeted by Indian police and media in drugs probe?
- Indian media outlets have railed on Rhea Chakraborty for her alleged involvement in the suicide of her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput
- Other Bollywood actresses are being investigated for alleged drug ties, leading to charges that prominent women are being targeted because of their achievements
Chakraborty was on Wednesday granted bail by Mumbai’s high court after she spent a month in jail for allegedly being involved in procuring drugs for Rajput. In allowing her to go free, the court said she was “not part of the chain of drug dealers” and had no criminal history.
She maintains that the allegations she organised and financed the consumption of drugs by Rajput were false. The government-run All India Institute of Medical Science on Saturday concluded that Rajput had died by suicide, and there was no mention of whether he had consumed drugs before his death.
There is a need to build a new India, where women are not punished for being women
The same media outlets also labelled some of Chakraborty’s fellow female Bollywood stars – including Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan and Rakul Preet Singh – as “druggies” soon after India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) swooped in to question them last month while investigating allegations of widespread drug abuse within the US$2.5 billion film industry.
