Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson Nawab Malik has shared two new videos on Twitter purportedly showing a Bharatiya Janata Party leader and a private investigator entering and leaving the Narcotics Control Bureau office in Mumbai. The two were allegedly part of the Narcotics Control Bureau raid during which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was detained.
In a press conference earlier on Wednesday, Malik had identified the two men as Manish Bhanushali, a national vice-president of the BJP, and KP Gosavi, the private investigator. Sharing the two videos, Malik claimed that the video was shot on the night of the raid.
Malik had shown photos of Bhanushali with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Gosavi was seen in a selfie he had clicked with Aryan Khan inside the Narcotics Control Bureau office. The anti-narcotics agency had said Gosavi was not a member of its team.
The Narcotics Control Bureau had on Sunday morning held Aryan Khan and seven others after it raided a party on the cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai. All of them have been sent to the agency’s custody till Thursday.
During his press conference, Malik had questioned whether the Narcotics Control Bureau has the authority to allow private citizens to take part in raids or to take their help for such operations.
“If the NCB has such authority, which law provides for it?” Malik asked. “For the past [one] year, the BJP has been engaging in fraudulent activities in order to defame the Maharashtra government and the Mumbai film industry. The whole drama that took place on October 3 was also fake.”
The NCP leader also alleged that the Narcotics Control Bureau had not seized the drugs that it showed to mediapersons from the cruise ship.
On October 4, the agency had itself admitted before a court in Mumbai that it recovered no illegal drugs from Khan. It only claimed that it had found “incriminating material” on his phone.
Meanwhile, Bhanushali on Wednesday claimed he held no official position in the BJP, ANI reported. He told India Today that he was a loyal worker of the BJP.
Bhanushali was also seen escorting Arbaaz Merchantt, an accused person in the case, to the central agency’s office. Bhanushali accepted that he was with officers of the drugs agency.
“However, it only seems like I am holding a person [Merchantt] with an NCB officer because it was a narrow lane,” he said.
The Narcotics Control Bureau said that it had done everything according to the law. “If they [the NCP] want to go the court, they can go and seek justice,” the agency’s Deputy Director General Gyaneshwar Singh said. “We will reply there.”
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