Agency let off BJP leader’s kin after raid: NCP’s Malik

MUMBAI: The Nationalist Congress Party on Saturday again attacked the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) over the drugs case involving actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, alleging that the agency initially detained 11 people from the cruise ship but eventually let off three of them, including the brother-in-law of a BJP leader.

An NCB team led by its zonal director Sameer Wankhede had raided a Goa-bound cruise last Saturday and arrested 8 persons, including Aryan Khan, for allegedly possessing drugs.

“The day the raid was conducted, Wankhede said 8 to 10 people were detained. But according to the information with the Mumbai police, 11 people were detained by the NCB that night. They were brought to NCB office but later three of them were released. They are Rishabh Sachdeva, Pratik Gaba and Amir Furniturewala. Sachdeva is brother in law of Mohit Bhartiya alias Mohit Kamboj (a former chief of Mumbai BJP’s youth wing). He was allowed to go after his father and uncle reached NCB office,” NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said.

Malik had earlier in the week also attacked NCB over the “involvement” of individuals from outside the agency during the raid, which he termed as “fake”.

The NCB termed Malik’s allegations as baseless. “NCB reiterates that its procedure has been and will continue to be professionally and legally transparent and unbiased”, Gyaneshwar Singh, deputy director general of NCB, said in a statement released on Saturday.

Kamboj, who threatened to file a ₹100-crore defemation case against Malik, rejected the allegations.