After 10 weeks, actor Sheezan Khan gets bail in Tunisha Sharma suicide case (Ld)

Palghar, March 4 (IANS) A Vasai court on Saturday granted bail to teleserial actor Sheezan Khan who was arrested and spent nearly 10 weeks in jail for his alleged involvement in the suicide case of his ex-girlfriend and co-actress Tunisha Sharma.

Sharma, 21, was found dead during the shooting of the serial, "Ali Baba: Dastaan-E-Kabul" on the morning of December 24, 2022, and a day later, Khan, 27 was nabbed for alleged abetment of her suicide, which sparked a huge controversy.

Additional Sessions Judge R. D. Deshpande has granted a conditional bail of Rs One Lakh to Khan, ordered him to deposit his passport, not to leave the country without the court's permission.

Sharma committed suicide on the sets of the teleserial erected at Naigaon in Vasai town after which the Waliv Police Station arrested Khan on charges of abetment.

Khan and Sharma were in a relationship but had broken off just a couple of weeks before the latter's death, ostensibly caused as she was in a deeply disturbed state of mind.

Later, Tunisha's mother Vanita Sharma and her uncle Pawan Sharma had alleged that Khan and his family were pressurising her to adopt Islamic practices, plus other contentions that drove her to end her life, and demanded their arrest on charges of abetment to suicide.

Khan's mother and actor-sisters Falak Naaz and Shafaq Naaz hit back at the Sharma family for falsely implicating them, and addressed the media on how Tunisha was allegedly subjected to suffering by her own family, not giving her money, neglecting her mental health problems, among others.

In mid-February, the Waliv Police filed its voluminous 524-page chargesheet in the case, naming Khan as an abettor to Sharma's suicide, besides listing 31 witnesses and other evidence, and are likely to file a supplementary chargesheet later.

Arguing for bail, Khan's lawyer Sharad Rai had pointed out that the investigations are over, the chargesheet has already been filed and hence his client should be granted bail, though there was opposition from the Special Public Prosecutor Sanjay More on various grounds.