Aryan Khan, who was recently granted bail in the cruise ship drug case, was questioned for hours on Friday by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), sources told News18.
He had earlier skipped the SIT interrogation on Sunday citing health issues.
On Friday morning, Khan had visited the NCB’s South Mumbai office to mark his weekly attendance as instructed by the Bombay High Court while granting him bail on October 28. Later in the day, he appeared before the SIT headed by NCB Deputy Director General Sanjay Kumar Singh in neighbouring Navi Mumbai. There, Khan was quizzed from early evening till almost midnight, sources told the news organisation.
According to the report, he was questioned about the circumstances under which he boarded the cruise, his links to drug suppliers, and about his peer group and their drug-related habits and preferences. Khan was also asked if he had planned to do drugs on board the cruise. The publication’s sources said he was given the option to deny all the drug-related charges against him as well. Earlier, when arguing for his bail, Khan’s legal team had insisted that no contraband was found on him and thus the charges made against him were false.
Further, the SIT team asked Khan about his WhatsApp chats that were cited by Wankhede’s team in court while opposing his bail. Wankhede and his team had claimed in court during every hearing that Khan had “incriminating” WhatsApp chats that indicated consumption of drugs as well as the purchase of larger quantities.
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The SIT team also questioned Khan about his time in custody and how he was treated then. He was also asked for details on his interrogation by the previous probe team, led by Sameer Wankhede. This line of questioning was in relation to the alleged extortion allegations levelled against Wankhede. Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the case, had alleged that a pay-off was being arranged between private investigator Kiran Gosavi, one Sam D’Souza, actor Shah Rukh Khan’s manager Pooja Dadlani, and Wankhede.
Khan, who turned 24 on Saturday, was arrested on October 3 by the NCB during a cruise ship drug raid based on a tip-off. The agency allegedly seized 13 gm of cocaine, 21 gm of charas or hashish, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy), 5 gm mephedrone, and cash worth Rs 1.33 lakh, and Khan was taken into NCB custody, along with a few others, including his friend Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha.