Cruise drug raid: NCB's Sameer Wankhede says would try to take case to logical end

NCB chief Sameer Wankhede said his team’s case was a strong one and the same would be presented before the court.

The Mumbai zone chief of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Sameer Wankhede said on Friday his team would try to ensure the case related to the seizure of drugs following a raid at a party on a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast reached its logical end.

NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede. (PTI Photo)

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was sent to jail during the day in the case after the court rejected his bail plea stating that it was not maintainable.

The bail pleas of two others -- Munmun Dhamecha and Arbaaz Merchant -- were also rejected by additional chief metropolitan magistrate RM Nerlikar.

Wankhede said his team’s case was a strong one and the same would be presented before the court.

On Thursday, he said a total of 18 people, including a Nigerian national, had been arrested in the case.

An NCB team had busted an alleged drugs party on the Cordelia Cruise ship which was on its way to Goa at mid-sea on October 2 night.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik has trained his guns on Wankhede and his team's conduct over the raids.

According to Malik, after the raid, Wankhede had said eight to 10 people were held and the NCB had let off two persons later with one of them being the brother-in-law of a "high-profile" BJP leader.

"How can an official who conducts an entire operation give an indefinite answer? If 10 people were held then why were two people let off. And of the two, one was brother-in-law of a high-profile BJP leader," he said.