Sushant's brother-in-law calls out scribe for 'toxic Bihari families' comment

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Vishal Kirti, Sushant Singh Rajput, Bihari, Bihar, families, journalist, article, toxic, comments, stereotypes, backlash, Twitter
Sushant with actress Kriti Sanon, sister Shweta and brother-in-law Vishal.

The article has caused an uproar online, with many calling out the generalisation and stereotypes in the piece.

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Published: Sun 9 Aug 2020, 8:02 PM

Last updated: Sun 9 Aug 2020, 10:10 PM

Vishal Kirti, the US-based brother-in-law of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, has slammed a media report for what he feels are demeaning remarks about Bihari families. Sushant was from Bihar.
Vishal, who is married to Sushant's sister Shweta Singh Kirti, share a blog link on Twitter, in which he has criticised the journalist in question for stating " the way the family has reacted says a lot about the burden of being a son in a Bihari family" in her article. She was referring to Sushant's family in her article which alleged that the onus of blame was being put on Rhea for Sushant's death simply because she was a woman. While some people retweeted and agreed with the points made in her article, it was met with backlash by many.
Responding to the article, Vishal tweeted: "This is where the journalist's stereotypical 'toxic Bihari family' trope gets debunked. The FIR didn't say that my father-in-law couldn't stand Ankita Lokhande (Sushant's ex-girlfriend). The FIR mentions one specific person called Rhea Chakraborty and giving it an anti-feminist flare is toxic journalism."
Vishal mentioned that the write-up has affected Sushant's family. "I wanted to let it go since, despite the tragedy in the family, I have to work just like many of Sushant's other family members and after a long work-week, I was reluctant about addressing these issues. But decided otherwise since I found out that this was affecting not only my loved ones but people from Bihar in general. Let me say at the outset that the aforementioned article is unintelligent in many ways and is extremely offensive, not only to Sushant's family but to Indian families in general," he added.
Vishal also gave a warning to "unsophisticated writers to not indulge in a disingenuous analysis of the situation".
According to him, Rhea had created a hostile environment for Sushant. "If hostile environmental conditions are brought out in the FIR, that's because Sushant's family in India were aware of the situation created by Rhea and her stooges, as exposed in their complaints to the Bandra DCP in February 2020 and SOS calls Sushant gave to his family in November 2019, January 2020, and June 2020. Those hostile environmental conditions could include gaslighting, blackmailing, alienating, covert medication, overt overmedication, and so on. I am not saying that a very hostile environment is necessary for people to fall into depression but in this case, the presence of a hostile environment seems to ring true," Vishal said.
Reacting to the writer's claim that "North Indian families can't stand girlfriends", Vishal wrote: "This is a preposterous generalization on many levels. Let's start with Sushant. Many people know that Sushant dated Ankita for at least six years and they lived together for a good portion of that relationship. People have seen great pictures of Ankita and Sushant's family together and almost everyone knows that some members of Sushant's family, including my wife, are in constant touch with Ankita."
"Sushant then presumably dated Kriti (although he did not explicitly mention that they were dating, so they might be just very good friends) and the last time we met him in July 2017, Kriti met with us as well. We were fond of Kriti too," Vishal wrote.


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