Sushant Singh Rajput death: Kshitij Ravi Prasad sent to judicial custody till October 6

Prasad is a former executive producer of Dharma Productions and was arrested by the NCB in connection with its probe in the drug angle in actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case

Kshitij Ravi Prasad, a former executive producer of Dharma Productions, arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with its probe into the drug angle in Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case, was sent to judicial custody till October 6 by the magistrate court on Saturday.

Kshitij Ravi Prasad was arrested by the NCB in its probe into the drug angle in actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. (File photo)

Special public prosecutor Atul Sarpande said Prasad was sent to judicial custody for three days to club his case with that of the other accused whose custody ends on October 6.

“While seeking his judicial custody, we mentioned that Prasad never cooperated with the agency and was arrogant in his behaviour,” Sarpande said.

He added that while Prasad had moved an application claiming he wanted to retract statements recorded by the agency, he had also not signed any statement so far.

Prasad was arrested on September 26 for allegedly receiving contraband from alleged pedlars who had supplied hashish to Showik and Rhea Chakraborty. In its application before the court seeking Prasad’s custody, the agency had stated that during the house search, the agency recovered ‘one roll joint believed to be remains of smoked ganja.’

The agency has claimed that Prasad’s role was revealed during interrogation of Sanket Patel, one of the alleged drug peddlers. Patel claimed that he had delivered ganja (weed) to Prasad at his residence in Andheri on the instructions of Karamjeet Singh. Singh is an alleged drug distributor believed to have a local network which provides drugs to people in the film industry.

“He (Patel) further stated that he delivered ganja around 12 times to Prasad from May 2020 to July 2020. Further, Prasad make payment of Rs 3,500 each after taking delivery of 50 grams of ganja,” read the application of NCB seeking Prasad’s custody on September 27.

The agency further submitted that during interrogation, Prasad admitted to having taken ganja from arrested alleged drug peddler Ankush Arneja and Singh through Patel.

“From the above, it is clear that Prasad purchased hashish/ganja from Arneja; further Arneja used to purchase drugs from [alleged drug peddler] Anuj Keshwani. Hence, Prasad is part of the conspiracy for drug procurement with Arneja and his co-accused. Prasad was connected with Keshwani, and Keshwani was linked with Kaizan Ibrahim, who was further linked with accused Dipesh Sawant and Sawant was linked with Showik, Rhea, [and] Rajput,” read the remand application.

While disclosing the alleged chain of distribution of ganja, the agency in its application had stated: “Patel supplied ganja/weed to Arneja and the said contraband was purchased by him from accused Singh. On the instruction of accused Singh, accused Patel purchased charas/weed and further delivered it to Prasad. Samuel Miranda [Rajput’s former house manager] and Prasad had taken delivery of ganja from Singh and his associate.”

Prasad’s lawyer, advocate Satish Maneshinde, had contended that his statement was recorded forcefully. The lawyer submitted that Prasad was in detention for almost 50 hours. He alleged that Prasad was called in to record his statement on September 25 and was made to spend the night at the NCB office.

“The next morning, when his statement recording resumed, Kshitij was categorically informed by Sameer Wankhede [investigating officer] in the presence of several other officers, that since he was associated with Dharma Productions, they would let him off if he implicated either Karan Johar, Somel Mishra, Rakhi, Apoorva, Neeraj or Rahil, falsely alleging that they consumed drugs. Kshitij refused to comply with this threat despite the pressure mounted on him as he did not know any of these people personally and did not wish to falsely implicate anyone,” Maneshinde had contended.

“At the end of nearly 50 hours of interrogation, humiliation and torment, Kshitij, is his desperation to speak to his lawyer or family, unwillingly and under threat, signed the statement,” he had further stated.