Motive behind Jiah Khan's suicide a mystery

Investigators remain clueless as to the motives which prompted Bollywood actor Nafisa alias Jiah Khan to commit suicide at her residence late Monday night, officials indicated here Tuesday.

As part of the probe into the high-profile case, police Tuesday summoned Jiah's boyfriend Sooraj - son of Bollywood character actor Aditya Panscholi - for questioning.

According to call records on Jiah's mobile phone, Monday night between 10.53 p.m. and 11.22 p.m., she was on a long call with Sooraj Panscholi. Shortly thereafter, she hanged herself.

"We are trying to ascertain the details of the final conversation between Jiah and Sooraj Panscholi and whether it had anything to do with her suicide," a police official told media-persons this afternoon.

The 25-year-old Britain-born Jiah was found hanging at her flat in Sagar Sangeet Building in the posh Juhu area of northwest Mumbai around midnight when her parents had gone out.

They returned to discover her dead body at home. No suicide note was recovered.

The cause of the suicide was not yet clear, police said, even as autopsy reports were awaited.

Her mother, Rabiya Amin-Khan, an actress of yesteryears, told police that Jiah was very depressed since some time as she had no acting assignments in hand.

Jiah also appeared for screen tests for some Telugu and Tamil movies but was rejected, Rabiya informed police.

According to her, feeling defeated to achieve her dreams of making it big in Bollywood, Jiah was on the verge of calling it quits and becoming a professional interior designer.

The news of Jiah's death - which has stunned Bollywood - was first flashed by another actress Dia Mirza through a social networking site around 1.45 a.m. Tuesday.

Jiah, 25, shot into the limelight with her debut movie "Nishabd" in which she starred opposite Amitabh Bachchan in 2007.

She got a Filmfare Best Debutant nomination for this Ram Gopal Verma movie in which she played a teenager besotted with a handsome man old enough to be her father.

Later in 2008, she was seen along with Aamir Khan and Asin in the blockbuster "Ghajini", a remake of A.R. Murugadoss's Tamil film by the same title.

Almost four years ago, she was last seen in Sajid Khan's "Housefull" with Akshay Kumar, Reiteish Deshmukh, Deepika Padukone and Lara Dutta.

Despite getting a dream start in Bollywood, Jiah's career somehow failed to take off and some industry insiders claimed it was due to her becoming "choosy" about roles.

The lissom actress was reportedly advised by a producer to put on some weight to get more work in films, but she preferred to consider quitting.

Nafisa, as she was born, had changed her name to Jiah, and later reverted to her birth name. Her mother is Rabiya Amin, an actor in the 1980s and noted for her role in a Tahir Hussain movie "Dulha Bikta Hai".

Jiah joins a list of young and promising actresses whose careers were tragically cut short by a mix of emotional-professional issues. Some of them are: Divya Bharati, Nafisa Joseph and Kuljeet Randhawa.