Sushant's brother-in-law calls out scribe for 'toxic Bihari families' comment

Mumbai, Aug. 9 (IANS): Vishal Kirti, the US-based brother-in-law of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, has slammed a media report for what he feels are demeaning remarks about Bihari families.

Vishal, who is married to Sushant's sister Shweta Singh Kirti, shared a link of his blog on his unverified Twitter account, in which he has criticised the journalist in question for stating " the way the family has reacted says a lot about the burden of being a son in a Bihari family" in her article.

Responding to the article, Vishal tweeted: "This is where Jyoti's (journalist) stereotypical 'toxic Bihari family' trope gets debunked. The FIR didn't say that my father-in-law couldn't stand Ankita. The FIR mentions one specific person called Rhea and giving it an anti-feminist flare is toxic journalism."

Vishal mentioned that the write-up has affected Sushant's family.

"I wanted to let it go since, despite the tragedy in the family, I have to work just like many of Sushant's other family members and after a long work-week, I was reluctant about addressing these issues. But decided otherwise since I found out that this was affecting not only my loved ones but people from Bihar in general.

"Let me say at the outset that the aforementioned article is unintelligent in many ways and is extremely offensive, not only to Sushant's family but to Indian families in general," he added.

Vishal also gave a warning to the "unsophisticated writers to not indulge in a disingenuous analysis of the situation".

According to him, Rhea had created a hostile environment for Sushant.

"If hostile environmental conditions are brought out in the FIR, that's because Sushant's family in India were aware of the situation created by Rhea and her stooges, as exposed in their complaints to the Bandra DCP in February 2020 and SOS calls Sushant gave to his family in November 2019, January 2020, and June 2020. Those hostile environmental conditions could include gaslighting, blackmailing, alienating, covert medication, overt overmedication, and so on.

"I am not saying that a very hostile environment is necessary for people to fall into depression but in this case, the presence of a hostile environment seems to ring true," Vishal said.

Reacting to the writer's claim that "Bihari families can't stand girlfriends", Vishal wrote: "This is a preposterous generalization on many levels. Let's start with Sushant. Many people know that Sushant dated Ankita for at least six years and they lived together for a good portion of that relationship. People have seen great pictures of Ankita and Sushant's family together and almost everyone knows that some members of Sushant's family, including my wife, are in constant touch with Ankita.