The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Friday transferred six of its cases, including the cruise ship drug case, in which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested last month, from its Mumbai team to their Delhi counterparts.
The NCB’s move comes in the wake of extortion allegations being levelled against the agency’s Mumbai unit zonal director Sameer Wankhede and a probe being set up to investigate the same. However, Wankhede said that he was not removed from the case and added that he had submitted a writ petition asking for the matter to be probed by a central team.
A statement issued on Friday by Sanjay Kumar Singh IPS, NCB Deputy Director General (Ops), about the transfer of the cases also notes that “no officer or officers have been removed from their present roles and they will continue to assist the Operations Branch investigation as required until any specific orders are issued to the contrary.”
A team from Delhi will reach Mumbai on Sunday to take over the cruise ship investigation.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Wankhede recorded his second statement regarding the extortion charges. The charges were levelled against him by Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the case, who claims to be the personal bodyguard of Kiran Gosavi, the private investigator seen in the viral selfie with Aryan Khan at the NCB office.
Sail has alleged that Gosavi discussed monetary pay-offs to Wankhede in a telephone conversation on October 3. He said the conversation, which he overheard, was about a Rs 18 crore deal between Gosavi and one Sam D’Souza, of which Rs 8 crore was going to be paid to Wankhede.
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Post this, a preliminary investigation was initiated by the Mumbai police and Wankhede’s first statement was recorded at the NCB’s office in Delhi on October 28.
Amid the extortion allegations, a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, Nawab Malik, also accused Wankhede of furnishing a ‘false’ caste certificate to secure a job in the Indian Revenue Services (IRS). Post this, the officer met with Vijay Sampla, chairman of the National SC/ST Commission.
Malik later released alleged chats between Wankhede’s sister, Jasmeen Wankhede, and a drug-peddler, which seem to implicate the former in some sort of a drug deal.