‘Just the beginning’, says Nawab Malik as NCB’s Delhi team takes over Aryan Khan case

A total of six cases, including the Mumbai cruise drug bust case involving Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, will now be probed by the Delhi teams of the NCB

Maharashtra cabinet minister and senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCB) leader Nawab Malik took to Twitter on Friday moments after the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) transferred six cases, including the Mumbai cruise drugs bust case, from its Mumbai zonal unit headed by Sameer Wankhede, to claim that “this is just the beginning” and more work would have to be done to “clean this system”.

Nawab Malik’s latest retort against Sameer Wankhede came amid days of allegations and counter-allegations between him and Wankhede (HT FILE PHOTO) (HT_PRINT)

"Sameer Wankhede removed from 5 cases including the Aryan Khan case. There are 26 cases in all that need to be probed. This is just the beginning... a lot more has to be done to clean this system and we will do it," Malik wrote on the microblogging platform.

A total of six cases, including the Mumbai cruise drug bust case involving Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, and another case involving Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan, will now be probed by the Delhi teams of the NCB. The federal agency said it was an administrative decision and the move was taken for a “deeper probe” into “forward and backward linkages”.

Malik’s latest retort against Wankhede came amid days of allegations and counter-allegations between the politician and the 2008-batch Indian revenue Service (IRS) officer.

Malik had accused Wankhede of extorting money from Bollywood stars and forging documents to obtain employment under the Schedule Caste quota.

He also alleged that the Wankhede wore “shoes worth ₹2 lakh, shirts that cost over ₹50,000 and watches that cost more than ₹20 lakh” and wondered how an “honest officer” can afford such a lifestyle.

“He can be seen wearing shoes worth ₹2 lakh, shirts that cost over ₹50,000 and watches that cost more than ₹20 lakh. How can an honest and upright officer afford such expensive clothes? He has extorted crores by framing the wrong people. If this is the lifestyle of an honest officer, we wish the same for the whole country,” Malik said.

Wankhede told reporters on Friday that he was not removed but rather the cases were transferred because of a writ petition filed by him in the Bombay high court, seeking an independent probe into the case and the allegations levelled against him by Malik. The high court had earlier disposed off a petition following an assurance from the Mumbai Police on providing Wankhede three days’ time before initiating any coercive action against him.