A Mumbai-based lawyer has approached the police for registration of an FIR against Narcotics Control Bureau’s Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede and others for extortion, criminal conspiracy, and bribery in the cruise ship drug bust case in which actor Shah Rukh Khan‘s son Aryan Khan was arrested.
On Sunday, Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the case who claimed to be the personal bodyguard of Kiran Gosavi, the private investigator who was seen in the viral selfie with Aryan Khan at the NCB office, had alleged that Gosavi had discussed monetary pay-offs to be paid to Wankhede in a telephonic conversation. He said that he overheard a conversation of a Rs 18 crore deal between Gosavi and one Sam D’Souza on 3 October, of which Rs 8 Crore was allegedly to be paid to Wankhede.
According to a Live Law report, advocate Sudha Dwivedi’s complaint stated that the central agency’s investigation would be a shame and only to tarnish the image of the “Maharashtra Government, Bollywood Film Industry and the Anti – Narcotics Cell of the State Government who has been working tirelessly by seizing ‘heroin’ and not ‘heroines’.”
Apart from Wankhede, the complaint seeks an FIR against Pooja Dadlani, manager of Shah Rukh Khan, witnesses Gosavi and Sail, BJP volunteer Manish Bhanushali under sections 384, 388, 120B of the IPC and section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Regarding the allegations, Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Tuesday also alleged that he received a letter from an unnamed NCB officer which lists 26 cases in which Wankhede and his team allegedly planted drugs on people to arrest them. He requested officials to include it in the investigation being conducted against Wankhede and said that he will be handing over the letter to the agency head.
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Meanwhile, Gosavi, who had been missing for the past few days, denied the extortion allegations made by Sail and said he would surrender outside of Maharashtra. “I was going to surrender before the police in connection with the Pune case, but since I had been receiving a lot of threatening calls I had to lie low,” Gosavi told Free Press Journal.
“Even if I am offered thousands of crores, neither I nor Sameer Wankhede will get sold.!” Gosavi further said.
Khan (23) 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 fashion designer Munmun Dhamecha.