JOIN USMumbai drugs bust case likely to be handed over to NIA: Report
The Mumbai drugs case, in which the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on October 3 arrested Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's 23-year-old son Aryan and allegedly seized banned drugs aboard a cruise ship, is most likely to be handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), CNN-News18 reported quoting sources.
An NIA team had visited the Mumbai zonal office of the NCB and spent hours inside, the report stated.
DH couldn't independently verify the report.
NCB's Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, who led the raid on a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast earlier this month, is in the eye of a political storm following allegations of extortion and his alleged connection with BJP leaders.
Prabhakar Sail, one of NCB's independent witnesses in the cruise drugs case, has alleged that he overheard K P Gosavi, another witness, talking to one Sam D'Souza over the phone about a demand of Rs 25 crore, including Rs 8 crore for Wankhede, to let off Aryan Khan arrested in the case.
Taking potshots over a meeting between family members of Sameer Wankhede and BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik accused the BJP of misusing central agencies to defame Maharashtra and Bollywood.
"I had already raised questions about BJP's uneasiness when I was targeting an NCB official for his alleged involvement in the fraud.”
The state minister, who has dubbed the cruise drugs case as "bogus", also accused Wankhede of forging documents to get a government job and lying about his religion, among other things. The IRS officer and his family have denied all allegations.
Wankhede has denied all allegations.
Meanwhile, the Special Enquiry Team (SET) of the NCB, which is probing allegations of the extortion attempt, said that it can not make any progress unless it speaks to Sail.
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(With PTI inputs)