Cricketers, actors booked in Juhu hotel rave party case

The police, in its charge sheet on a drug bust at a Juhu hotel in May last year, has alleged that cricketers Rahul Sharma and Wayne Parnell (South Africa), besides TV actors Apoorva and Shilpa Agnihotri had consumed banned hallucinogenic substances at a rave party there. 

Copies of the charge sheet, filed on March 6 before a special NDPS (Narcotics, Drugs and Psychotropics Substances Act, 1985) court, was handed over to Sharma and the Agnihotris.

Parnell and 34 other accused have been declared “absconding.” The accused are out on bail at present.

The 1,200-page charge sheet stated that blood and urine samples of 85 of the 96 people rounded up during the swoop, including the cricketers and the actor couple, showed traces of banned cannabis.

The raid was carried out at the Oakwood Premier Hotel on May 20, 2012.

Most of the people held during the raid belonged to the upper strata of the society and alleged that the police had framed them deliberately. A day after the raid, the police had claimed that 110 gram of cannabis was recovered from the terrace of the hotel.

Of the 96 revellers, 38 were women, including 19 foreigners. Both Sharma and Parnell, who used to play for the Pune Warriors in the Indian Premier League then, as well as the Agnihotris, had claimed to be innocent.

Sharma and Parnell were immediately released on a personal bond after they denied consuming any narcotics or substance abuse.

Fashion designer Rocky S and Angad Bedi, son of former cricketer Bishen Singh Bedi, were also detained. They were later granted anticipatory bail by the special NDPS court.

The city police had then declared that preliminary pathology reports indicated that of the 44 people who tested positive, 27 had consumed cannabis, one had ingested MDMA (better known as “Ecstasy”), while 16 consumed both.

The event manager Vishesh (aka Vishy) Vijay Handa, along with disc jockeys Deepesh Sharma and Rakesh Sharma, have also been named in the charge sheet.