The Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested singer Samar Singh from Ghaziabad for allegedly abetting the suicide of popular Bhojpuri actress Akanksha Dubey, officials said on Friday.
A look-out notice had been issued against Samar Singh and his brother Sanjay Singh after Dubey was found dead in a hotel room in Varanasi's Sarnath area around a fortnight ago. Both were booked under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) based on the complaint of the actress's mother.
Samar Singh was hiding in a housing society in the Raj Nagar Extension area, under the Nandgram police station limits, of Ghaziabad -- the western Uttar Pradesh district bordering Delhi.
He was held late on Thursday night in a joint operation by the local police and their visiting counterparts from Varanasi, a senior officer said.
"A team from the Sarnath police station of the Varanasi Commissionerate had come to Ghaziabad late on Thursday night. They sought the help of the Ghaziabad police in nabbing Samar Singh from the Charms Castle (housing) society," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Ghaziabad City) Nipun Agarwal said.
"The accused is being presented in a Ghaziabad court for transit remand by the Varanasi police team," the DCP said on Friday morning.
Agarwal said that before moving to Ghaziabad, Samar Singh was hiding in Noida, Delhi and Uttarakhand.
Police said that four people, including Samar Singh, were taken into custody from the flat on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday. They were brought to the local Nandgram police station for questioning after which three were let off.
Akanksha Dubey, a popular Bhojpuri actress, was found dead inside a hotel room in Varanasi on March 26. The 25-year-old actress was found hanging from the fan with a stole. Dubey, a native of Bhadohi district, had gone to Varanasi for shooting a movie and was staying in the hotel.
The next day, her mother Madhu Dubey lodged a complaint with the Varanasi Police, alleging that Samar and Sanjay Singh "harassed and tortured" her daughter for three years.
"My daughter lost her life because of their harassment," Akanksha's mother had alleged, according to the FIR seen by PTI.
Lawyer Shashak Shekhar Tripathi, who has taken up the case for the actress' mother Madhu Dubey, has raised a question mark on the post-mortem report and said that he was seeking the advice of medical experts and based on it preparing questions for the police.
Tripathi had on Wednesday demanded a probe by the CBI or CB-CID into the matter. In a letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, he alleged that the 25-year-old actress' death was not by suicide, rather she was killed by some people in the hotel room.
He also alleged that Akanksha's body was "forcibly cremated" despite her mother's insistence that the cremation should happen only after the post-mortem report arrives.
Many known people in the Bhojpuri industry were exploiting Dubey and were not paying her for her work, the lawyer had alleged.
