Jiah Khan

Nafisa Rizvi Khan (20 February 1988 – 3 June 2013), better known as Jiah Khan, was an English-American actress and singer who worked in Indian films. She appeared in three Hindi films from 2007 to 2010. Born in New York City to Indian parents, she was raised and educated in London. Khan aspired to pursue a career in acting and moved to Mumbai for a film career. She made her film debut in the 2007 Ram Gopal Verma film Nishabd for which she was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She was later noted for portraying the supporting role of a modern, independent woman in Ghajini, which was the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2008. After a two-year absence, she was reportedly praised for her comic role in the romantic comedy Housefull, which was the fifth highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2010. She was found hanging from a ceiling fan in the bedroom of her family residence in Juhu, Mumbai. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted a thorough investigation and heard her story at the Hon'ble Bombay High Court which concluded her death as suicide. Khan's mother continued to claim that Khan had been murdered by her boyfriend, actor Sooraj Pancholi, leading the prosecution to make a failed attempt to lay charges of murder and sexual assault in 2017. In 2018, a court in Mumbai charged Pancholi with abetting Khan's suicide but acquitted him in April 2023 due to lack of evidence.