Sooraj Pancholi's mother, Zarina Wahab, explains why Aditya and she filed a Rs 100-crore defamation suit against Jiah Khan's mother Rabbiya
Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 7, 2014)

Why did you file a defamation suit against Rabbiya Khan?
Aditya: We want her to stop talking s**t about our family. Since the last eight months she has been running a malicious campaign against us on Twitter. She claims I am a drug peddler, my daughter Sana is an addict, my son is a murderer and Zarina is a home-breaker.
Zarina: She has caused us a lot of embarrassment.

You sent her a legal notice objecting to those tweets some time ago, right?
Aditya: Yes, but she replied to the legal notice through her lawyer, saying, “Aditya's reputation is well known in the industry and needs no comments. Lethargic investigation helped Sooraj to stay in the jail for fewer days."This is nothing but character assassination. It made our blood boil.
Zarina: She has no right to malign our family.

The CBI has now taken up the case...
Aditya: We want a thorough probe. That woman keeps changing statements.
Zarina: Yes, let the truth come out. Even Rabbiya knows my son is innocent. I want the CBI to probe Jiah's London days. And most importantly, the letter, which Rabbiya claimed was Jiah's suicide note, needs to be examined thoroughly.

Why is that letter important?
Aditya: Earlier, Rabbiya said that was Jiah's suicide note. Now, she says her daughter was murdered. If she committed suicide, she couldn't have been murdered and vice versa. Jiah's handwriting doesn't match with that in the letters she wrote to Sooraj. And I'm saying this on the basis of a forensic test, which we got done.
Handwriting expert Nisha Menon has given me a report that will hold in any court of law.
Zarina: My son went to jail simply because of that so-called suicide note.

How can you prove that Jiah wrote the letters, which were found in your house?
Aditya: We matched the handwriting with a column written by Jiah in Nari Hira's magazine. Hira was kind enough to help us.
Zarina: I think Rabbiya didn't expect us to have samples of Jiah's handwriting in these days of texts and emails. Rabbiya says Jiah was found dead in a gown but she had entered the building wearing a tracksuit. She also adds that she couldn't have possibly hung herself because the fan was between two beds...
Aditya: Let the CBI investigate every point. We are even ready to undergo a lie-detector test. But Rabbiya too should undergo the same test.
Zarina: We have nothing to hide. We know Sooraj will come out clean.

Did you ever try to stop Sooraj from dating Jiah?
Aditya: I didn't know that my son was seeing Jiah till I bumped into them in Goa. After that, like every other father, I did lecture him on how he should focus on his career. But Jiah was a lovely girl and after a while we had absolutely no objections of her being a part of Sooraj's life.
Zarina: We never tried to stop Sooraj. But let me tell you, Sooraj had told us that Jiah was depressed when he met her for the first time.

Do you think your latest move will silence Rabbiya?
Aditya: If she had apologised for the tweets, we wouldn't have filed the defamation suit. That way, I can say that since she was the first person to enter the house, maybe she killed her daughter.
Zarina: She should keep mum till the verdict is out.

Since Salman Khan is launching Sooraj in the Hero remake, was it his idea to file this suit?
Aditya: No, but we did keep him in the loop.
Zarina: It was my idea. I decided enough is enough, I need to stand up for my son.
----------------------
Subhash K Jha (DNA; July 7, 2014)

In a move that has been long overdue, the Pancholi clan has struck back against Jiah Khan’s mother Rabbiya’s ongoing tirade against their family, slapping her with a Rs 100 crore defamation suit. Said Aditya, “We were planning to sue Rabbiya for a very long time. But we needed to get all the facts and figures (including the number of times she has allegedly tweeted defamatory comments against us) in place. We finally filed the case on July 3.” Aditya says he has nothing personal against Jiah’s mother. “She is a bereaved mother looking for reasons why she lost her daughter. I understand her agony. But really, her ranting against my family has to stop. My wife, daughter and I have filed the defamation suit, so she’d stop her utterly damaging and false comments against my family and me. She has to present herself to the courts on July 9. The matter moves forward from there.”

Surprisingly, Aditya says he welcomes Rabbiya Khan’s request for a CBI probe. “It’s the best thing to have happened in my son’s case. The probe will finally put a closure on these allegations. If, as Jiah’s mother claims, her daughter was murdered, let’s have the identity of the murderer. And if so, then the Mumbai police has a lot of explaining to do about why my son went to jail for 21 days for abetment of suicide.” Aditya says he is fully prepared for the battle ahead.

Reacting to Mrs Rabbiya Khan’s statement that her Twitter account was hacked into, when the defamatory comments against the Pancholis were made, Aditya sniggers, “She has been using the same account, uninterrupted. If her account was hacked, why was she still using it? And why didn’t she report it?” Aditya says he isn’t concerned with Mrs Khan’s explanations. “All I want is for the slander against my family to stop. We’ve suffered enough.”