Rahul to cops: Pratyusha’s parents responsible for her financial mess

MUMBAI: During his first questioning by the police in 10 days since his hospitalization, actor-producer Rahul Raj Singh has held fiancee Pratyusha Banerjee’s parents responsible for her financial condition.
Rahul had got himself admitted to a nursing home, complaining of depression and low blood pressure on April 3, two days after Pratyusha was found hanging at their Goregaon apartment.While granting him interim protection till April 18, the Bombay high court has instructed Rahul to appear at the police station from 11am to 1pm. As he has not been discharged from the nursing home yet, Singh arrived at the police station on Wednesday in an ambulance dressed in hospital clothes.
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Rahul told investigators that Pratyusha was in a financial mess due to loans taken by her parents in her name and withdrawals made by them from her bank accounts. He also refuted her mother’s accusation that he had been torturing Pratyusha. In a press conference last week, Pratyusha’s parents had said Rahul and his father handled their daughter’s finances and she had shown injuries sustained from Rahul’s beatings to her aunt.
On Wednesday, Rahul was quizzed about the sequence of events leading to Pratyusha’s death on April 1. He was also questioned about whether he had a fight with Pratyusha.
Rahul’s former lawyer, Neeraj Gupta, had alleged that the actor was partying at Andheri’s Bora Bora restaurant with a girl till the early hours of April 1. Rahul has accepted this before the cops and identified the girl. Rahul said he left home for work around 1pm that day. When he called up Pratyusha, she sounded like she had been drinking a lot. He returned home with packed lunch but could not find his house keys. He tried to open the door with car tools and later summoned a keymaker, but in vain. Eventually, a cook working in an adjacent flat offered to enter Rahul's apartment through the balcony. The cook discovered Pratyusha’s body and let Rahul and the keymaker into the house. Rahul tried to resuscitate her before rushing her to Kokilaben Ambani Hospital and calling the cops. Rahul’s version, including the timings that he provided, were matched with the CCTV footage procured from the building.
A doctor, a nurse, Rahul’s aunt, family friend Sahila Chaddha and lawyer Vikas Goar accompanied Rahul in the ambulance to the police station and back to the nursing home. “Bring my Pratyusha back to me, can you?” he told mediapersons at the Bangur Nagar police station. He also nodded when a reporter asked him if he was innocent.
Pratyusha wanted to tie the knot on Bengali New Year, which falls on Thursday, and had asked designer Rohit Verma to make a lehenga for her.