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Aryan Khan released after spending 22 days in Mumbai jail
A Friday release for the 23-year-old was thwarted because the bail documents did not reach Arthur Road jail, where Aryan spent 22 days for alleged consumption of drugs and conspiracy, in time
Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, was released from Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail at about 11am on Saturday, two days after the Bombay high court granted him bail and after spending 22 days behind bars in the cruise drugs abuse case .
On Saturday, at about 10.25 am, Shah Rukh Khan’s security team reached the jail to receive and take Aryan back home.
The Bombay high court on Friday had granted Aryan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant and model Munmun Dhamecha bail in a drug case that made many raise issues of questionable proof and investigative overreach.
They were arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on October 3, along with several others, a day after the agency conducted searches at the International Cruise Terminal in Mumbai and a holiday cruise anchored at the terminal and purportedly seized multiple drugs from a number of persons.
They spent 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 high court on Friday issued a five-page bail order and 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.
The court stipulated a personal bond of ₹1 lakh each with one or two sureties of the same amount, and said it will release a detailed order with reasons next week.
Shortly thereafter, actor Juhi Chawla appeared before the special NDPS court along with Aryan’s counsel, advocate Satish Maneshinde, as surety for Aryan. No sureties were presented for Merchant and Dhamecha.
But a Friday release for the 23-year-old was thwarted because the bail documents did not reach Arthur Road jail -- where Aryan spent 22 days for alleged consumption of drugs and conspiracy - in time.
“As per the jail manual, the procedure is that documentation (for release on bail) should be completed by 5:30pm and his documents did not reach us. After due course process, he will be released from jail tomorrow (Saturday),” Nitin Vaychal, superintendent of Arthur Road jail said on Friday.
Also Read | Extortion charges: Police begin probe against Wankhede, other NCB officers
For a prison inmate to get out on bail, the court papers have to be put inside a rusted steel letter box that is installed outside the jail. The box is opened four times everyday at 5.30 am, 9.30 am, 3.30 pm and 5.30 pm.
Aryan’s legal team dropped his bail papers in the box late in Friday evening and the jail authorities collected the same at 5.30 am. Vaychal said the 23-year-old will be released along with other inmates lodged in the jail, whose bail papers were received and processed by the jail staff.
Aryan and others were arrested by NCB on October 3, a day after NCB Mumbai zonal chief Sameer Wankhede led a raid on the cruise ship Cordelia, docked off the Mumbai coast. 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. He also claimed that Aryan was linked to a foreign international drug trafficker, and therefore needed to remain in custody.
Dhamecha’s counsel, Kashif Ali Khan Deshmukh, said on Friday that they will approach the Bombay high court again. ”We are moving for cash bail as Munmun is not a resident of Mumbai and facing problems with surety for her release,” he said.
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.
As delays mounted, experts doubted whether protocol was breached during the raid – private individuals like Sail’s employer Kiran Gosavi, who was arrested in Pune on extortion charges on Thursday, were seen assisting officials and walking into the NCB office despite holding no official position in any law enforcement agency.
