Jiah Khan: three films and a tragic life framed in headlines forever

Mumbai: Who is Jiah Khan? Ten years after the 25-year-old actor was found hanging in her Juhu home, the question was back with a special CBI court on Friday acquitting her boyfriend Sooraj Pancholi of abetment to suicide.

She made a splash with her debut “Nishabd”, a remake of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita”, opposite Amitabh Bachchan and went on to act in just two others films. The second was as a supporting actor in the Aamir Khan-starrer “Ghajini” in 2008. After that came the 2010 comedy movie "Housefull", where she was one of an ensemble cast along with Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone and Ritesh Deshmukh.

Jiah, an American citizen, was not even 20 when she acted in Ram Gopal Varma’s “Nishabd” in 2007. It was a high profile start with her role as a young woman who falls for her friend’s father, a 60-year-old man played by Bachchan, leading to much curiosity for its controversial plot.

She was nominated for a Filmfare Best Female Debut Award for her performance in the film.

The daughter of Indian American businessman Ali Rizvi Khan and former actor Rabiya Amin, Jiah was born in New York City. Her parents separated when she was two and she moved to London where she completed her education before moving to Mumbai to pursue a career in Bollywood.

The flourishing career was not to be.

Jiah got the chance to work with Shahid Kapoor in “Chance Pe Dance” but was replaced 20 days into the shooting amid much speculation.

And three years after her last film “Housefull”, her mother Rabia Khan found her dead in her bedroom on June 3, 2013.

Rabia Khan, a key prosecution witness in the case, told the court she believed it was a case of murder and not suicide.

“I will fight. This judgment is not surprising…I had anticipated this. This is not a case of abetment to suicide it is a case of murder," she told reporters after the verdict was announced.

In an anguished letter found a few days after her death, Jiah wrote of her tormented relationship with Pancholi.

The letter, which has been repeatedly circulated on social media platforms, alleged that Pancholi assaulted her and forced her to abort their baby.

“I've already lost everything. If you're reading this I might have already left or about to leave. I am broken inside. You may not have known this but you affected me deeply to a point where I lost myself in loving you. Yet you tortured me everyday,” she wrote.

“So I am kissing my 10-year career and dreams goodbye,” the young woman wrote.

And that became her epitaph.