Mumbai Drug Bust HIGHLIGHTS: Police probes permission details of party; Aryan Khan to remain in NCB custody

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), probing the seizure of banned drugs from a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast, on Tuesday told a court in Mumbai that the matter has become like the novels of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes with "new twists and turns every moment". The NCB has so far arrested 16 people, including Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan (23), in the drug seizure case. Earlier on Tuesday, additional chief metropolitan magistrate R M Nerlikar remanded Abdul Qadir Sheikh (30), Shreyas Nair (23), Manish Rajgariya (26) and Avin Sahu (30) to the NCB custody till October 11.

Read More

A court on Tuesday remanded four persons to the custody of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) till October 11 in a case pertaining to the seizure of banned drugs from a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast in which Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, is also an accused.

The anti-drugs agency has so far arrested twelve people, including Aryan Khan, after raiding the Goa-bound ship on Saturday. READ FULL STORY HERE

(PTI)

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan had to take the NCB's permission for a brief meet with his son Aryan Khan in the agency lock-up, when the 24-year-old cried before his dad, though eventually it has surfaced that no drugs were recovered from him.

Read More

NCB arrested SRK's son Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Seth Merchant and others in connection with the Mumbai cruise party raid. And now Arbaaz's father has finally shared his view on the matter and called the allegations 'baseless.' Watch the video here-

The Mumbai Police on Tuesday began its probe into the cruise ship case seeking details about the permission for the party at the cruiseliner. As per ANI, no written letter seeking permission for a party on the ship was submitted to police. Further details are awaited.

Tkaing to the micro-blogging website, Mika Singh tweeted, "Wow what a beautiful @CordeliaCruises I wish I could have visted. I heard lots people were there but I couldn’t see anyone els accept #AaryanKhan ..Itne bade cruse mei sirf aariyan hi ghoom raha tha kya.. hadd hai.. good morning have a wonderful day.."

Eight persons, including Aryan Khan, were detained for questioning by the NCB allegedly in connection with the drug seizure on the cruise ship, according to NCB Mumbai Director Sameer Wankhede. While the people related to the Hindi film industry have been accused of drug use several times, the debate around the topic gained momentum after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in June 2020.

READ MORE

Actor Hrithik Roshan's former wife Sussanne Khan has come out in support of Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan after their son Aryan Khan was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for alleged possession of banned drugs and substance abuse. Calling out such people, Sussanne took to Instagram and wrote, "I think this is not about Aryan Khan, as he was unfortunately at the wrong place at the wrong time, this situation is being made an example to drive home the excitement that some people get as they have a witch hunt on people from Bollywood."

READ MORE

Seema Khan & Maheep Kapoor

Salman Khan's sister Alvira

Soon after the court announced its order of extending Aryan Khan's NCB custody, senior advocate Satish Manshinde was clicked outside SRK's house late Monday evening.

Satish Maneshinde outside SRK's house on Monday

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday said he is repelled by the "ghoulish epicaricacy" of those "witch-hunting" actor Shah Rukh Khan over his son's arrest and urged people to have empathy in the matter. Referring to the brouhaha surrounding the development, Tharoor said, "I am no fan of recreational drugs & haven't ever tried any, but I am repelled by the ghoulish epicaricacy displayed by those now witch-hunting @iamsrk on his son's arrest."

"Have some empathy, folks. The public glare is bad enough; no need to gleefully rub a 23yr old's face in it," the Lok Sabha MP said.

According to NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede, many more people are being questioned in the rave party case. However, Wankhede refused to comment on the whole matter. Late night, another person was brought to the NCB office but no official information was given about who he was.

Now it seems that Aryan Khan's troubles have increased as on one hand he did not get relief from the court while on the other hand, Shreyas Nair and Arbaz Merchant were also been detained by NCB.

Aryan Khan (23) and the two others – Munmun Dhamecha and Arbaaz Merchant - were arrested on Sunday evening and produced before a special holiday court on Sunday that remanded them to NCB custody till Monday. Six others – Nupur Satija, Ishmeet Chadha, Mohak Jaiswal, Gomit Chopra, Vikrant Chhokar and a drug supplier from suburban Juhu (name not disclosed) - were arrested later. The court, while remanding them to NCB custody, noted that prima facie, a case has been made out against them and hence their interrogation is required.

The magistrate on Monday sought to know from the NCB how much drug seizure was made from each of the accused. To this, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, appearing for the NCB, said six grams of charas was seized from Merchant, while five grams of the cannabis was recovered from Dhamecha. All these are considered as "small quantity" under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS).

Aryan Khan, Dhamecha and Merchant have been booked under sections 8(c) (produce, manufacture, possess, sell or purchase of drugs), 20(b) (punishment for contravention of cannabis), 27 (punishment for consumption of any narcotics or drugs) read with 35 of the NDPS. Under the Act, possession of up to one kg is termed as 'small quantity' of cannabis, while a seizure of over 20 kg is considered as 'commercial quantity'.
For charas/hashish, the Act says small quantity is up to 100 gm while commercial quantity is one kg or more.

As per the arrest memo of the NCB, a seizure of 13 grams of cocaine, five grams of MD, 21 grams of charas and 22 pills of ecstasy and Rs 1.
33 lakh in cash was made after the raid on the ship.