Aryan Khan case: NCB trying to get into media by targeting Bollywood, says lawyer representing Sushant Singh Rajput’s family

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, October 31

The lawyer for the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s family in their legal wrangle with Rhea Chakraborty has accused the Narcotics Control Bureau of playing for public attention by taking up cases against Bollywood personalities, adding to the mounting criticism that the bureau is facing over an alleged drug racket involving Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh told NDTV that the bureau was only picking up such cases to hit the spotlight.

“The NCB is very anxious to get into media,” an NDTV report quoted him as having said.

“They are targeting small-time consumers and in Delhi, our children tell us drugs are being consumed by children at parties. If this is the standard of NCB, they should start raiding parties in Delhi as well where powerful people are there,” Singh told NDTV.   “It’s not fair for them to just pick up Bollywood (Hindi film industry based in Mumbai) and give Bollywood a bad name as if Bollywood is filled with drug addicts. That’s not the right attitude of the NCB. Instead of going for the big fish, they are just diverting the attention of people.”

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Incidentally, actor Rhea Chakraborty, who was investigated in connection with Rajput’s suicide, was among those whose names the NCB took in its charge sheet before a special court in connection with Rajput’s death. The NCB had accused Chakroborty and her brother Showik of being part of a "drug syndicate" and claimed she was part of a conspiracy to procure and supply drugs.

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Singh was Sushant Singh’s father KK Singh lawyer in his legal battle against actor Rhea Chakraborty over the Bollywood star’s death in June 2020. Rajput’s suicide set off a series of investigations into supposed drug links in the film industry, with the NCB questioning several industry personalities.

Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested over WhatsApp chats that the NCB allegedly found in his phone during a raid on a luxury cruise in Mumbai on October 2. He was sent to Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail on October 8 and was released on bail on Saturday.  The Bombay High Court set 14 conditions for his bail, which includes surrendering his passport to investigators, reporting to the bureau every week, and not making any attempt to contact the other suspects in the case—including his friend Arbaaz Merchant and model Munmun Dhamecha. 

The NCB meanwhile has found no drugs on him but has instead pegged their entire investigation on WhatsApp chats that they prove his involvement in “illicit drug deals” and links with a foreign drugs cartel.

In a related but equally mystifying development in the case, NCB Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede, an Indian Revenue Service officer of the 2008 batch who’s heading the investigations, now faces allegations of extortion and impropriety in the Aryan Khan case after a witness accused him of demanding payoffs in the case.  

Wankhede has denied the allegations as “an attempt to derail investigations” and approached the Bombay High Court, which said authorities must give him three days' notice before taking any action against him.