On June 14, 2020, Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his Mumbai apartment.
And almost immediately, the question wasn't just what happened?
It was:
Was this really a suicide?
The internet had an answer before the investigation did.
And then another.
And another.
Soon, the country was drowning in theories.
Murder.
Poisoning.
Strangulation.
A connection to Disha Salian's death.
A Bollywood “mafia.”
Rhea Chakraborty.
The missing seven days.
Every new detail seemed to create another question.
And then the people at the centre of it started speaking.
Rhea Chakraborty publicly said:
“I want to know what happened in that one week, whether it was suicide or whether it was something else.”
She said that was why she wanted a CBI investigation.
At the same time, allegations against her were exploding across television and social media.
She was accused of poisoning him.
Of controlling his medication.
Of taking his money.
Of isolating him.
Her response?
“Based on what? Based on what, what is this based on?”
And then came one of the most striking parts of the entire media storm.
Rhea described what was happening to her as:
“This is an absolute witch-hunt.”
But the public conversation had already moved far beyond one person's statement.
There were people questioning the autopsy.
There were people questioning the timeline.
There were people analysing photographs.
There were people claiming that marks on his body suggested something other than hanging.
One forensic report at the time even raised questions about details in the preliminary autopsy, while stressing that the actual physical evidence was with investigators.
Then Sushant's family's lawyer pushed back against the eventual AIIMS opinion, saying:
“How could the AIIMS team give a conclusive report in the absence of the body?”
He called for a fresh forensic team.
And just like that, the country had two things happening at once.
An investigation was trying to establish what actually happened.
And the internet was building its own investigation.
Every photograph became a clue.
Every interview became evidence.
Every coincidence became suspicious.
Someone would post a timeline.
Someone else would find a missing detail.
Someone would say:
“Look at this.”
And thousands of people would start looking.
That is what made the Sushant case so different from a normal news story.
It wasn't just being reported.
It was being investigated by the public in real time.
Except there was one problem.
Not every theory was a fact.
And not every “clue” was evidence.
In 2020, the AIIMS medical board concluded that his death was a case of hanging and suicide, ruling out poisoning and strangulation.
Years later, in 2025, the CBI filed a closure report saying its investigation had found no evidence of foul play or criminal conspiracy.
But by then, the theories had already become part of the story.
Because once people become invested in a mystery, an answer isn't always enough.
We want to know who.
We want to know why.
We want to know who is lying.
And sometimes...
We really, really want to be the person who figured it out first.
Which brings us to the slightly less serious thing we've been working on.
Because we took that exact obsession with suspects, secrets, lies and figuring out who to trust...
and put it in Bollywood.
If you've been on our Instagram lately, you've probably noticed something.
We're suddenly very, very into Bollywood.
No, we haven't lost the plot.
We've just been putting your favourite Bollywood characters, your childhood nostalgia and an unhealthy amount of brain rot into one Mafia game.
Think iconic characters.
Characters you grew up watching.
Characters you absolutely did NOT expect to see in a Mafia game.
Your friends.
One table.
A whole lot of suspicion.
And absolutely no guarantee that the person sitting beside you isn't lying straight to your face.
Basically, we took Bollywood nostalgia, added Mafia, sprinkled in some questionable humour and somehow turned it into a card game.
And yes, you can now play it.
even with just one brain cell.
— Crime Lab
Your smartest friend who's dangerously obsessed with turning questionable ideas into
products 🧚🏻♀️
