Jiah Khan

Nafisa Rizvi Khan (20 February 1988 – 3 June 2013), better known as Jiah Khan, was an English-American actress and singer who worked in Indian films. She appeared in three Hindi films from 2007 to 2010. Born in New York City to Indian parents, she was raised and educated in London. Khan aspired to pursue a career in acting and moved to Mumbai for a film career. She made her film debut in the 2007 Ram Gopal Verma film Nishabd for which she was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She was later noted for portraying supporting role of a modern, independent woman in Ghajini, which was the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2008. After a two years absence from films, she received praise for her comic role in the romantic comedy Housefull, which was the fifth highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2010. She was found hanging from a ceiling fan in her bedroom of her family's residence in Juhu, Mumbai. Deemed a suicide in 2013, and re-confirmed as a suicide in 2016 following an extensive investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and a hearing at the Bombay High Court. Khan's mother continued to claim that Khan had been murdered by her boyfriend, actor Sooraj Pancholi, leading the prosecution to make a failed attempt to lay charges of murder and sexual assault in 2017. In 2018, a court in Mumbai charged Pancholi with abetting Khan's suicide, but acquitted him in April 2023 due to lack of evidence. Early life Nafisa Khan was born on 20 February 1988 in New York City, United States, to Ali Rizvi Khan, an Indian American businessman, and Rabiya Amin, a Hindi film actress in the 1980s from Agra, Uttar Pradesh. Her father left the family when she was 2 years old. Describing her father's absence she said "A man who left his daughter when she was two, should be hanged in public". She has two younger sisters Kavita and Karishma. Her paternal aunts are Pakistani actresses Hina Rizvi, Sangeeta (Parveen Rizvi) and Kaveeta (Nasreen Rizvi).