Why a Bollywood celebrity manager's 2020 death case has been reopened

Disha Salian's father insists her death was not suicide or an accident, but that she was gang-raped and murdered. On 4 June 2020, as a deadly wave of Covid-19 swept through India, celebrity manager Disha Salian asked her father Satish Salian to call a police helpline to check if it was safe for her to travel. She was excited about an advertising campaign she was going to shoot and showed her parents a photo of the cheque she had received as advance remuneration. As she walked out of the door, she told her parents that she would be back in two days. It was the last time the Salians saw their 28-year-old daughter alive.

On the intervening night of 8 and 9 June, Satish Salian was called by the police to a hospital where he learnt that his only child was dead. Police said she had fallen from the 12th floor of a building in the western city of Mumbai. Disha's friends at the hospital said she had been drinking alcohol and fell accidentally. Police later said their investigation had shown that her death was a suicide. But earlier this month, the Bombay High Court ordered the federal police – the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – to reopen the case and reinvestigate Disha's death. The court order came after