Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut is not mincing words these days, especially when it has anything to do with the Sushant Singh Rajput investigation.
In a series of tweets through the digital team that runs a social media account in her name, Ranaut targeted Karan Johar once again, along with dropping some political references, while adding that if she is targeted, it won’t be suicide.
“… Kangana is saying if I am found hanging in my house, please know I did not commit suicide,” a tweet by her digital team read, a day before Ranaut was quoted as saying that shots were fired outside her home in Manali in a bid to intimidate her.
According to a report in Times of India, Ranaut called the police after reportedly hearing gunshots on late Friday night outside her home. The actress believes this was done to scare her after she made comments about a ‘Chief Minister’s son’.
Ranaut told the Indian daily that she heard a loud sound at 11.30pm and had her security check out the disturbance. When the cops arrived, they reportedly suspected someone must have been firing a gun to scare away bats from apple orchards.
“I have heard the sound of a bullet and I think it was definitely a bullet, very intently fired twice, two shots with a gap of about eight seconds between them. And it was right opposite my room. So it seems like someone was behind the boundary walls, there’s a jungle and a water body there,” she said in the interview.
“I do feel that, you know, because I have made a political comment on people who are known for their goondagardi [thuggery]. So this may have been a small-time alarming call for me that okay, you know, don’t talk like that about us or something like that… to me seems like that, because such an activity has never happened here before. And I have witnesses who have also heard it along with me,” she said.
The actress added that she was of the assumption that some local thugs may have been hired to scare her off.
She further added: “To do this to make a statement on the day I called out the chief minister’s son - I don’t think it was a coincidence. People are telling me that they will now make your life miserable in Mumbai. Well, I don’t have to be in Mumbai, they are doing it here also. Is there open goondagardi in this country? This is how Sushant must have been frightened. But I will continue to ask questions.”
Ranaut’s words come even as the investigation into Rajput’s death, who died by suicide according to Mumbai Police, has taken many turns in recent weeks. While 41 people have recorded their statement in the case, including filmmakers Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Aditya Chopra and Mahesh Bhatt, Ranaut has been vocalising that more needs to be done in the investigation.
In the same tweet where she warned people not to believe she would die from suicide, she also wrote: “Everyone knows but no one can take his name, Karan Johar’s best friend and world’s best CM’s best son, lovingly called baby penguin…”
On July 26, as soon as news broke that Dharma Productions CEO Apoorva Mehta would be called in for questioning by Mumbai Police, Ranaut’s team tweeted: “So Karan Johar’s manager is summoned but not @AUThackeray’s [Aaditya Thackeray] best friend @karanjohar !! @MumbaiPolice stop making a joke out of SSR murder investigations.”
Ranaut has been leading a crusade to take down the ‘Bollywood mafia’ as she calls them, while arguing that Rajput’s death was caused by the late actor being shunned by the Indian film industry for being an outsider. The 34-year-old actor died on June 14, and was found dead in his home in Mumbai. An investigation into his death is currently underway, with the late actor's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty in the eye of the storm.
Rajput’s father KK Singh lodged an First Information Report or FIR against Chakraborty in Patna, Bihar, stating that she allegedly blackmailed his son and transferred funds from Rajput’s account. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a case of money laundering over transactions worth Rs150 million related to the suicide of Rajput under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
