Prabhakar Sail, a witness in the Mumbai cruise ship drugs case involving actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, died of a heart attack at his home in the Maharashtra capital on Friday, reported India Today, citing his lawyer.
Advocate Tushar Khandare, who was representing Sail, also told India Today that his client’s family did not suspect any foul play.
However, Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil said that his death will be investigated, NDTV reported. “How could such a strong and healthy man die suddenly?” he asked.
Sail was made witness in the drugs case in October. He had reportedly overhead investigator Kiran Gosavi talk about a Rs 18 crore deal, of which Rs 8 crore was to be paid to then Narcotics Control Bureau Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede. In an affidavit, Sail had identified himself as Gosavi’s bodyguard.
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.
In his affidavit, Sail had claimed that Gosavi had asked him to collect Rs 50 lakh in cash from someone and later told him to give the money to a man named Sam D’Souza.
Sail had also claimed that a Narcotics Control Bureau official had asked him to sign on 10 blank papers. This was after Gosavi instructed Sail to sign as a panch (witness) in the case.
The case
On October 2, Khan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant, model Munmum Dhamecha and five others were arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau after a raid on a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai.
During the raid, the agency had claimed to have seized 13 grams of cocaine, five grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy) and Rs 1.3 lakh from the ship.
On October 28, the Bombay High Court granted bail to three accused, Khan, Merchant and Dhamecha, and observed that there was no evidence of a conspiracy among them.
Notably, the order had said that Khan had not carried any drugs during the raid, despite the Narcotics Control Bureau claiming in October that he had been found in “conscious possession” of contraband substances.
On March 2, several media reports had said that the Narcotics Control Bureau’s Special Investigation Team had not found any evidence that Khan was part of an international drug trafficking syndicate.
However, Narcotics Control Bureau’s Deputy Director General (operations) Sanjay Kumar Singh had refuted the reports and told Scroll.in that Khan was not cleared of any charges in the case.
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