Aryan Khan goes home after bail order reaches jail

On Saturday morning, a member of Shah Rukh Khan’s security detail escorted Aryan into a white Range Rover waiting outside the jail and drove him to his residence Mannat

Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, emerged from Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail at 11am on Saturday, two days after the Bombay high court granted bail to him and two others, who were arrested after the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) raided a cruise ship earlier this month.

Aryan Khan steps out of jail in Mumbai on Saturday. (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

On Saturday morning, a member of Shah Rukh Khan’s security detail escorted Aryan into a white Range Rover waiting outside the jail and drove him to his residence Mannat, located in the Mumbai suburb of Bandra, over three weeks after his arrest. Large crowds with people holding banners celebrating his homecoming gathered outside his residence, as he reached home an hour later.

The police made heavy security arrangements outside the jail, barricading the road on which the jail’s main entry and exit gates are located to manage vehicular traffic as a crowd gathered on the road outside the central prison to catch a glimpse of the 23-year-old, who spent 22 days in jail.

Though no member of his family has released any statement since his release, Aryan’s younger sister Suhana shared a collage of their childhood pictures with their father over a social media platform, soon after the court granted him bail.

The high court granted Aryan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant and model Munmun Dhamecha bail on October 28, stipulating a personal bond of ₹1 lakh each with sureties of the same amount. On Friday, the court delivered the bail conditions, following which actor Juhi Chawla appeared before the special Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court along with Aryan’s counsel, advocate Satish Maneshinde, to stand as surety for him.

Merchant and Dhamecha — both were granted bail by the high court along with Aryan — were not released from prison on Saturday (Dhamecha is lodged at the Byculla women’s jail, while Merchant is at Arthur Road jail). Their lawyers said that they are likely to come out on Sunday as their release documents could not reach on time.

“We managed to complete all the formalities today. Our surety was accepted by the court and we got the release memo and put that in the bail box of the Arthur Road jail, but missed the deadline of 5pm,” said Merchant’s advocate Taraq Sayed. Dhamecha’s counsel Kashif Ali Khan said that while they received the release memo, they missed the deadline too.

Physical copies of the release papers have to be placed in the bail box, which is opened four times a day: 5.30am, 10.30am, 3.30pm and 5pm. Aryan’s release, too, was delayed previously as his release papers did not reach the jail on time.

A special NDPS court on Saturday granted bail to nine people, including three employees of a Delhi-based event management firm which had been involved in organising a party on the cruise ship. The court, which had denied bail to Aryan, prompting his lawyers to move the high court, also granted bail to Achit Kumar, the purported supplier named by Aryan. Kumar was arrested on October 6, and the NCB claimed to have recovered a small quantity of hydroponic weed (multi strain cannabis) from him. In all, 14 of the 20 people arrested are out on bail.

An NCB team led by zonal chief Sameer Wankhede conducted searches at the International Cruise Terminal in Mumbai and on a holiday cruise, Cordelia, anchored at the terminal, and seized multiple drugs from a number of persons on October 2. Wankhede said that 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy), and ₹1.33 lakh in cash were recovered from the ship.

Aryan, Merchant and Dhamecha were arrested on October 3. Aryan spent three weeks in jail after a special NDPS court sent him to judicial remand accepting the NCB’s charge that he was indulging in “illicit drug activities on a regular basis”.

Though no drugs were recovered from Aryan, his friend Merchant, who was with him at the time, was arrested for possessing 6 grams of Charas in a plastic pouch in his shoe. Dhamecha, a model and a guest at the cruise ship, which was to set sail for Goa later that evening, was also arrested for possession of 5 grams of Hashish. In all, the NCB arrested 20 persons on various charges of the NDPS act, including conspiracy, possession, consumption, sale, and purchase. This includes two Nigerian nationals.

Aryan, Dhamecha and Merchant spent the first five days in NCB custody and were shifted to jail on October 8, a day after the Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court remanded them to judicial custody.

The case turned on its head last Sunday, when a key NCB witness alleged that Wankhede was part of a ₹25 crore extortion racket targeting Aryan. The witness, Prabhakar Sail, also alleged that he was forced to sign sheets of blank paper, prompting the anti-drug agency to set up a vigilance inquiry into Wankhede’s conduct.

The high court’s five-page bail order issued on Friday listed 14 bail conditions, including surrendering of passport, no influencing of witnesses or contacting co-accused, and presenting themselves in the NCB office every week.