A FIR has been lodged against Bollywood starlet Rakhi Sawant and six others for forcing Laxman Prasad Ahirwar into depression and subsequent death.
The FIR was lodged at the Prem Nagar police station in Jhansi district on Friday evening, ADG Brij Lal told reporters in Lucknow.
Rakhi Sawant was accused of “driving Laxman Prasad (a participant on her show) to death” with her indecent and caustic comments made against him on her show Rakhi Ka Insaaf.
Laxman had died on Wednesday, apparently due to an overdose of alcohol and the family had cremated his body without post mortem. There was no police complaint when he died. On Thursday, Laxman’s family, allegedly egged on by a local NGO, claimed that the deceased had been driven to depression after being ‘abused’ by Rakhi Sawant and it was this that led to his death.
On Friday morning Laxman’s mother, Savita Ahirwar told local reporters, “What had to happen has happened and even if we go to court, we will not get our son back.” However, she continued to rave and rant against Sawant. According to their neighbours in Prem Nagar locality in Jhansi district, Laxman’s family had been paid a sum of `1 lakh on Thursday by the representatives of the channel that aired the show and the channel even promised more financial assistance.
“The family, as an afterthought, decided to garner publicity and blame his death on the TV show. The show had been recorded on September 13 and was telecast on October 23. Everyone had happily travelled to Mumbai for the recording. Laxman was fine when he returned from the recording. He did get upset when people started teasing him about Rakhi having called him an ‘impotent’ on the show but he did not commit suicide. He was an alcoholic and a gambler and he died due to an overdose of liquor,” said a neighbour of the Ahirwar family on condition of anonymity.
Laxman Prasad and his uncle had appeared on Rakhi Sawant’s show, apparently to resolve his dispute with his wife Anita whom he had married in February this year. Anita declared on the show that Laxman was forcing her to sleep with his uncle Balbir Ahirwar as well. An enra-ged Rakhi then went on to term Laxman as an “impotent”. Meanwhile, a senior police official in Jhansi said that after the FIR, the police would now start investigations into the matter.