Bhojpuri actress Akanksha Dubey’s death: Singer Samar Singh arrested from Ghaziabad

PTI, Apr 7, 2023, 12:10 PM IST

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The Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested singer Samar Singh, an accused in the death of popular Bhojpuri actress Akanksha Dubey, from here, officials said on Friday.

A look-out notice had been issued against Singh and another man after Dubey was found dead in a hotel room in Sarnath around a fortnight ago.

Singh was hiding in a housing society in the Nandgram area 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 Thursday night. They sought the help of 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.

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 by a piece of cloth. Dubey, a resident of Bhadohi district, had gone to Varanasi to film a movie and was staying in the hotel.

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 Akansha’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.