Mumbai: "There is a hero, heroine and a vamp in a Bollywood potboiler. They wanted me to be the vamp in the Pratyusha Banerjee-Rahul Raj Singh saga." This is what Saloni Sharma, TV actress and former girlfriend of Rahul Raj Singh, had to say when asked why she was being blamed for Balika Vadhu actress Pratyusha Banerjee's suicide.
Even before anyone could decipher why Pratyusha allegedly committed suicide, her friends from the industry outside Kokilaben Hospital had come to conclusions about who is guilty and why she may have decided to take the extreme step. Dolly Bindra, Rakhi Sawant were among the ones who claimed that Pratyusha was unhappy as her boyfriend Rahul was still having an affair with his ex-girlfriend Saloni.
"She was very upset. Pratyusha had already stitched her lehenga. She was supposed to get married. You can go ask her designer Rohit who has also come here," Dolly Bindra had told this reporter outside Kokilaben Hospital. Over the next few days, murky details began tumbling out, which only made Pratyusha's death even more mysterious. And Saloni was increasingly appearing as the reason behind why Rahul-Pratyusha's relationship was in doldrums.
Allegations and counter allegations continued, but Saloni refused to speak on the issue. After much persuasion, she decided to break her silence. We met her in a suburban coffee shop on Thursday evening. She was waiting in a corner dressed in tiger stripe pants, all geared up to clear her name from a controversy which she claims she was dragged into by people whom she has never met.
"Ask me whatever you want but I won't speak on camera," was the first thing she told this reporter. "Unlike others I don't want any publicity. I am only speaking because people who do not even know me spoke about my relationship with Rahul," she said
"I am no other woman. Pratyusha was the other woman," said Saloni on allegations that Rahul was having an affair with her while he was dating Pratyusha. Saloni moved to Mumbai and met Rahul five years ago, which she claimed was only because of business interests. The duo started an event management company which soon ran into losses.
Like every other woman in his life, this time, too, Rahul had told Saloni that he had an established company in place. But Saloni maintained that she for the longest time did not realise that Rahul was only bluffing about his financial status. "We started dating only in the last three years of our association. He kept me in the dark that he started dating Pratyusha. He started dating her in May 2015 and I only discovered this in July when Pratyusha had thrown her birthday party," said Saloni. "My father, too, accosted both of them and asked them when was he planning to tell me. They were very casual about it," she added.
The actress says it was Pratyusha who manipulated Rahul. "The only time I met Pratyusha was when I had gone to their residence to ask Rahul to return my money. Pratyusha assaulted me. She told me that she will tell Rahul not to give me my money. I left their home and as I was coming down Rahul came running behind me. I was furious and I hit him back when we were in the lobby. This was caught on camera. But what they don't see is Pratyusha assaulting me in her bedroom," said Saloni.
Saloni who was projected by Pratyusha's friends as the woman Rahul depended on said that in the last few months, she was only in touch with Rahul because he owed her a lot of money. "I had invested around Rs 30 lakh in the business and he was returning me only in thousands," she said.
One would have wondered why Saloni wouldn't not file a cheating case against Rahul since he was not returning her the money, but she said, "Look what he had done to the other women who he had owed. I was being selfish. I just wanted some money to come in so that I could clear my debt. Had I filed a complaint against Rahul, he wouldn't have returned a penny."
So, was there a pattern in how Rahul allegedly lured woman? "I had no idea that he was doing this to other women. But now when I see other women saying that he had taken money from them too. I realised that the money he was taking from me he wasn't investing in the business as promised. He was using it to finance his lavish lifestyle," she said. "It was all show. Neither did he nor his family have the money that he used to keep talking about," she added.
Saloni maintained that after she got to know that he was dating Pratyusha, she kept him at bay and would only interact to get her money back. She never asked Rahul about Pratyusha. On the day when Pratyusha allegedly committed suicide, it was widely believed that Rahul had taken shelter at Saloni's residence as his car was spotted in Lokhandwala where Saloni stays. "That is absolutely false. Rahul wasn't with me on the day Pratyusha died. We both have a lot of common friends who also stay in Lokhandwala. I was in a shoot and I came to know about Pratyusha's death from my friends," said the TV actress.
Rahul was earlier married to an air-hostess from Kolkata -- a fact that a lot of women that he dated in Mumbai, including Saloni -- had no idea about for the longest time. "I did ask him about his marriage. He told me he was getting a divorce but he could never furnish his divorce papers," she said. However, the actress clarified that Rahul was never abusive to her.
Rahul, who has been booked for abetting Pratyusha's suicide, has been granted interim relief by Bombay High Court. On the court's directions, he has to appear before the Bangur Nagar police between 11 am to 1 pm. Rahul is being questioned by investigative officer Deepak Phatangre. In the last two days, he has been asked over 150 questions. "Rahul is denying his role in Pratyusha's death case. He is not cooperating with the investigation but we are taking down his statement," a Mumbai police source said.
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