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Drugs case: NCB says no officer removed, new team to conduct deeper probe
The NCB said an SIT had been constituted by the agency’s director general to take over from its Mumbai zonal unit the six cases as they had national and international ramifications.
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday said it functioned across India as a single integrated agency and no officer or officers were removed from their present roles and they would continue to assist their operations branch investigation as required.
The statement was issued soon after the agency transferred six of its cases, including the drugs-on-cruise case in which Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son is an accused, from the Mumbai branch to its Delhi team. It was further informed NCB’s Mumbai zone director Sameer Wankhede, who is facing extortion allegations, would no more investigate the sensational case.
Among the six cases is also one in which Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik's son-in-law Sameer Khan is an accused. Malik said the Wankhede's removal as head from the cases was “just the beginning” and a lot more would have to be done to clean the system.
The NCB said a special investigation team (SIT), comprising officers from its operations branch, had been constituted by the agency’s director general, SN Pradhan, to take over from its Mumbai zonal unit the six cases as they had national and international ramifications.
The SIT would conduct a deeper investigation to find out forward and backward linkages, it further said.
Also read | On bail in drugs-on-cruise case, Aryan Khan appears before NCB
A team from the Delhi NCB operations will now camp in Mumbai to take the probe in these cases forward.
The NCB had arrested Aryan and several others in the drugs on cruise case on the intervening night of October 2-3 and Wankhede is facing a departmental vigilance probe after an independent witness in the case levelled an extortion attempt against the agency, its director and some others.
