Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday said that it was “shocking” that a witness in the Mumbai drugs case was made to sign blank pages by the Narcotics Control Bureau. He asked the police to take suo motu cognisance of the matter.
Raut also shared a video in which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, an accused in the case, can be seen speaking on the phone, sitting next to private investigator Kiran Gosavi.
Raut’s statement came after Prabhakar Sail, a witness in the case, claimed that soon after Khan’s arrest, he was made to sign on 10 sheets of blank paper at the anti-drug agency’s office. In an affidavit, Sail also claimed that he had overheard Gosavi talk about a Rs 18 crore deal, of which Rs 8 crore was to be paid to Narcotics Control Bureau Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede.
“Also there are reports that there was demand of huge money,” Raut said in a tweet. “CM [Chief Minister] Uddhav Thackeray said that these cases [drug bust] are made to defame Maharashtra. This seems to be coming true.”
During an interview to news channel Mirror Now on Sunday afternoon, Sail had showed the video that Raut tweeted. Sail told the news channel that he had shot the video inside the Narcotics Control Bureau office.
Earlier on Sunday, Sail had claimed that Gosavi, a person called Sam D’Souza and a woman, Pooja Dadlani, had met in a car in the early hours of October 3. Dadlani is the manager of Shah Rukh Khan, according to media reports. However, the affidavit does not mention anything on this.
Sail claimed that Gosavi has gone missing and that he too fears being abducted or killed.
“As seen in the big cases, witnesses are often killed or taken away and I therefore want to state the truth,” the affidavit said
Gosavi is also a Narcotics Control Bureau witness in the drugs case. he was seen in a selfie with Aryan Khan inside the anti-drug agency’s office.
Aryan Khan’s drug case
Khan and seven others were arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau after a raid on a cruise party off the coast of Mumbai on October 2. The agency said it had seized 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy) and Rs 1.3 lakh from the ship.
Aryan Khan is in custody after a special court in Mumbai denied him bail on Wednesday. He has approached the Bombay High Court for bail.
Khan’s lawyers have repeatedly argued in courts that no drugs were found in his possession.
However, on Wednesday, judge VV Patil of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances court had rejected this argument. He said that Khan knew that co-accused Arbaaz Merchant was carrying narcotic substances in his shoes at the party. Patil said that this amounted to “conscious possession”.
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