The NCB SIT has found “serious irregularities” and gaps in the Mumbai drugs-on-cruise case probe, officials said, adding that its first team has been arrested. Bollywood Superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan did not follow rules like mandatory medical test of the accused, video recording of raids and verification of evidence for WhatsApp chats. NCB Director General (DG) SN Pradhan told reporters that there were “loopholes” in the investigation and that the WhatsApp chat of the accused did not have the “material verifiable evidence” required to prove the allegations in court.
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Friday filed a nearly 6,000-page chargesheet before a Mumbai court against 14 accused in the 2021 case, while not accusing six, including Aryan Khan, for lack of sufficient evidence. “We have filed the charge sheet based on what our Special Investigation Team found on the last date of filing the chargesheet,” Pradhan said.
Talking about the role of Khan, who spent 26 days in jail before getting bail in the case, NCB Deputy Director General (Operations) and SIT chief Sanjay Kumar Singh said that the “basic premise” is that his friend (Arbaaz Khan) was taking drugs. That has not been proven and found to be “misleading”. “His friend (Arbaaz Khan) denied that he had taken drugs for Aryan Khan. In fact, he told the SIT that Aryan Khan DDG Singh had said that no drugs should be brought on the cruise as the NCB was very active.
He said that no evidence was found against Aryan Khan to substantiate that he either consumed, procured or was involved in any conspiracy, which involved international relations with regard to narcotics, and hence the charges against him were legal. Not worth checking out. The SIT chief said that “no medical examination” was conducted by the NCB team to prove whether Aryan Khan had consumed drugs or not.
He said the NCB team under its then Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede had done “no videography” of the raids conducted by the agency on Cordelia Cruises at the international cruise terminal on the intervening night of October 2-3 last year. The NCB SIT also found that all the accused were not necessarily linked and hence in the chargesheet they have classified them under 6-7 different sub-groups defining their limited roles.
DDG Singh said Aryan Khan’s phone was confiscated but “legal procedures were not followed” while opening it. “Since the beginning, the seizure of mobile phones was suspicious,” he said.
He said the statement of Prabhakar Cell, the deceased witness in the case, was recorded by the SIT and told them that he was made to “sign on blank papers” and did not see the seizure of drugs on the cruise. He said that another witness in the case, who is presently in jail in the Maharashtra Police case, Kiran Gosavi, has supported the NCB’s action taken that day in October.
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