Aspiring television actor Akshat Utkarsh, 26, allegedly committed suicide by hanging at his Andheri (W) residence on Sunday. Police said that Utkarsh died by suicide as he was depressed due to lack of work, while his family has accused police of inefficiency and claim it is a murder. Meanwhile, Amboli Police have registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR) and are investigating the matter.
Utkarsh, a struggling actor who hailed from Bihar and was in the tinsel town to make it big in the television industry, stayed with a female friend as a paying guest at an apartment near Andheri RTO. Late on Sunday night, after dinner, Utkarsh and his friend retired for sleep in separate bedrooms. Around midnight, when the friend woke up and went to the washroom, she saw that Utkarsh had hanged himself from the ceiling fan.
The friend immediately alerted police and neighbours, who took him down and rushed him to privately run Kokilaben Ambani Hospital, where he was declared dead upon arrival. Someshwar Kamthe, senior inspector of Amboli police station said, "Amid lockdown, Utkarsh was out of work and was depressed since the last few days. While we did not recover any suicide note, an ADR was filed in the matter."
On Tuesday Utkarsh's family took his body to Muzzafarpur, and claimed that he was murdered. The budding actor's cousin blamed Mumbai Police's apathy, to which senior inspector Kamthe said, "While his body was shifted to civic-run Cooper Hospital for postmortem, the primary report suggested that cause of death was asphyxiation, there was no foul play suspected in the matter."
Police said prima facie it was revealed from the statements of Utkarsh's friends that he was depressed and was indebted due to financial problems.
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