SIT takes over Aryan’s, 5 other drug cases from NCB Mumbai

MUMBAI: The newly formed special investigation team (SIT) of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) operation unit arrived in Mumbai on Saturday, a day after it took over six cases, including the cruise drug bust case involving Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan being investigated by the Mumbai unit of the agency headed by Sameer Wankhede.
A press release by the NCB said this has been done on “administrative grounds” and no one has been removed from the case.Wankhede said he has not been removed from the case. The SIT headed by IPS officer Sanjay Singh told media that his team would take assistance from the Mumbai unit.

Singh, a 1996 batch Odisha cadre IPS officer, currently posted as deputy director general (operations unit) in NCB’s Delhi office, arrived in Mumbai with his team and went to the NCB’s Mumbai office. The six cases being taken over by the SIT include the case of Aryan Khan, actor Armaan Kohli’s arrest case, Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik’s son in-law, Sameer Khan’s case, and three other drug cases.
An SIT was formed on Friday and NCB said the special team will take over the probe from Mumbai NCB in six cases — which the agency said have “national and international ramifications, in order to conduct deeper investigation to find out forward and backward linkages”.

State minister and NCP leader Nawab Malik had alleged that the cruise drug bust case was a fake one and released images of witnesses accompanying Aryan Khan to the NCB office and selfies with Khan. One of the witnesses was a BJP worker and another one K P Gosavi was a criminal, he had alleged. Gosavi, who was wanted in several cases, was subsequently arrested by Pune police in a cheating case.
The case also attracted controversy after one of the witnesses Prabhakar Sail in an affidavit alleged discussion of pay offs to be made to a NCB official besides meeting with Shah Rukh Khan’s manager Pooja Dadlani where money exchanged hands.
Another witness, Sam D’Souza, whose name figured in Sail’s affidavit said that Rs 50 lakh was collected from Dadlani but it was returned after he realised that Gosavi was a cheat. The state has formed a SIT to probe the extortion allegations. Wankhede has denied the extortion charges.
Wankhede faced criticism from several politicians of NCP and Shiv Sena who accused him of tarnishing the image of Bollywood. Sources said the probe in the Aryan Khan case will be taken forward from the point where Ananaya Pandey’s statement was recorded. NCP minister Nawab Malik had also forwarded an unnamed and unsigned letter to NCB’s top brass.