In a shocking incident, a 23-year-old TikTok star and social media influencer Pooja Chavan committed suicide in Pune, which has snowballed into a political row with the Opposition BJP on Friday demanding an impartial probe into the incident.
Senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly, has written a letter to Director-General of Police Hemant Nagrale along with some purported audio clips pointing to the alleged involvement of a minister in the incident.
On 7 February, Pooja, who hailed from Beed district of Maharashtra, jumped from the top floor of the building’s balcony in Wanwadi area. At the Wanawadi apartment, she was living with her friends and on the ill-fated night, she was partying with her friends and after that, she jumped from the balcony and the reason of her death is still a big question for everyone.
A video got viral on the social media where Pooja was enjoying the party with her friends and also, there was a minister who attended the party and due to which the BJP demanded an investigation into the whole case.
The Wanawadi police have registered an accidental death case, ruling out anything suspicious about her death, while social media audio-messages have also been scanned. “We have received the audio recordings but did not find anything objectionable in them. The family has not complained against anyone. How can we make allegations ourselves against someone else into the case? We are investigating, but there is nothing on record yet,”. The police said.
However, the state BJP Women’s Cell President Archana Patil met Pune Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta on Thursday and demanded a full probe into the matter, claiming that an MVA minister’s name was allegedly linked to the girl.
BJP leader Chitra Wagh urged Home Minister Anil Deshmukh to order a fair probe into the matter as her family was reportedly under pressure.
Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said that the police are probing the case and the truth will come out after the investigation is complete.
While Fadnavis pointed out that the Banjara community is disturbed after the incident, the Pune Police claimed that the girl’s family has given a statement saying she died by suicide owing to some mental problems and no complaint has been lodged in connection with the case.
The matters came to a boil in the past couple of days after several purported audio clips on the incident went viral, leading to a political blame game by the opposition as the needle of suspicion allegedly pointed towards a state minister.
With IANS inputs