Nitin Desai’s voice notes reveal his criticism on the financial service firm say police officials
Nitin Desai’s voice notes reveal his criticism on the financial service firm say police officials
Bollywood’s renowned Art Director-turned-filmmaker’s suicide has raised eyebrows of many as to why was he depressed over his finances?
According to police reports, one of the voice notes found after his alleged suicide, Nitin criticised a financial services firm to which his company owed money.
Further, the Raigad police who are investigating the suicide
have found 11 audio clips in a voice recorder at his office.
In his voice notes, he is heard stating that his company could not come out of the financial crisis it was facing because of the procedure adopted by the financial services firm.
The voice notes were of duration ranging from four minutes to 20 minutes, and in some of them Desai, who was 57, narrated his life story, the official said.
The police are likely to quiz the officials of the financial services firm mentioned in the note for enquiry.
Reportedly, Nitin’s company
ND’s Art World Pvt Ltd
had defaulted on a Rs 252 crore loan repayment to creditors and the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal had initiated insolvency proceedings against it.
The company had borrowed
Rs 185 crore through two loans from ECL Finance in 2016 and 2018, and troubles with repayments started from January 2020.
ECL Finance is a non-banking finance arm of the Edelweiss Group.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday told the state Assembly that the role a private lending firm, from which Desai had taken loan, would be probed to know whether he was charged high interest and if he was under mental stress.
Police Officials reveal that the voice notes mention four persons.
In one of the note, Desai appealed to the government to take over his Karjat studio to provide a platform to artists and budding talent.
He had faced many ups and downs in life and walked a long road, and it was not possible for him to go a few more steps further from this point, that was why he was stopping here, Desai purportedly said in another audio clip.
Before taking the drastic step, he offered prayers at the temple on the studio premises and later asked his attendant to accompany him for a stroll around the studio.
He then asked the attendant to bring the key of the mega floor. Police believe that Desai had planned to end his life a month ago, as he had had a rope suspended in the middle of the centre stage on the mega floor back then.
When his workers asked him about the purpose of the suspended rope, he said it was according to Vastu Shastra, the police official said, adding that Desai had also placed a step ladder nearby.
In the early hours of Wednesday, Desai and his attendant visited the mega floor.thereafter, Nitin asked the attendant to lock it up, but kept the key with himself.
Before going to his bungalow named ‘Salman Ki Haveli’, he gave a voice recorder to his attendant and asking him to hand it over to his lawyer in the morning. But then he called him again and took back the recorder as per Police Officials.
He had then asked the attendant to collect the recorder from him in the morning as he wanted to record something in it.
Next morning the attendant found that Desai was not in his bungalow. He found the voice recorder and played it.
As he heard the words Lalbaug-chya Raja-la majha shevat-cha namaskar (My last respect to Lalbaug-cha Raja), the attendant sensed that something was wrong, and rushed to the mega floor where he found the art director hanging from the rope.
Desai apparently seem to have committed suicide between 4 am to 6 am.
Before ending life, he had fashioned a bow and arrow from rope on the floor of the stage. His body hung above the tip of the arrow.
It might mean that he had picked up a “Shiv Dhanush” — a very difficult task — when he created his sprawling Karjat studio, but could not handle it, the official said.
‘Lalbaug-cha Raja’, it is to be noted, is a famous Ganesh installed in central Mumbai’s Lalbaug area during Ganesh festival.
Desai designed the pandal of this very popular Ganesh year after year.
In the last voice note he recorded, Desai is heard speaking the words of the famous Marathi devotional song Paule chalati Pandharichi waat (Feet move towards Pandharpur, the pilgrimage town).
News Edit K.V.Raman
