Mumbai: On October 2, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officials stepped aboard a cruise ship anchored at the International Cruise Terminal at Green Gate. Cordellia was set to make its way to Goa before 22 officials led by the agency’s Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede began to search passengers and rooms based on a tip-off.
Eight hours later, the team apprehended 14 persons, including Aryan Khan, the 23-year-old son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, Aryan’s friend Arbaaz Merchant and fashion
Mumbai: On October 2, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officials stepped aboard a cruise ship anchored at the International Cruise Terminal at Green Gate. Cordellia was set to make its way to Goa before 22 officials led by the agency’s Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede began to search passengers and rooms based on a tip-off.
Eight hours later, the team apprehended 14 persons, including Aryan Khan, the 23-year-old son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, Aryan’s friend Arbaaz Merchant and fashion designer Munmun Dhamecha. The haul included multiple drugs: 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of Mephedrone, 21 grams of Charas, and 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy). A sum of ₹1.33 lakh was also recovered from the cruise. Merchant purportedly admitted to carrying 6g of charas in a plastic pouch tucked away in his shoe.
Later that evening, all 14 were brought to the NCB office at Ballard Pier in South Mumbai where NCB officials checked their WhatsApp chats, mobile call details and interrogated them for 12 hours. At about 2 pm on October 3, Khan, Merchant and Dhamecha were put under arrest along with five others for alleged involvement in consumption, sale, purchase and attempt to commit offence under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
The sections included 8(c) (breach of prohibition on sale, purchase, consumption of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances), 20(b) (contravention in relation to cannabis), 27 (punishment for consumption of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances), 28 (attempt), 29 (abatement) and 35 (presumption of culpable mental state).
The arrests set off a maelstrom of debate over social media and within political circles. The current minority development minister and spokesperson of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — one of the three parties in the ruling coalition — held a press conference alleging that the NCB acted on the behest of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); the NCB official who led the raid has filed a complaint that he was being followed and sought police protection. The tip-off itself became a matter of contention — the person who proffered the information based on which the raid took place was a BJP member.
In the midst of this is 23-year-old Khan, from whom no contraband was actually seized, but who continues to remain lodged in prison after the Mumbai Sessions court on October 20 rejected his bail plea, alongside Damecha’s and Merchant’s. The NCB claims that during interrogation Khan admitted to having consumed charas and the quantity seized from Merchant was meant to be consumed by both of them.
The arrests
The trio — Dhamecha, Merchant and Khan — were sent to JJ Hospital, in South Mumbai for a medical examination and produced before a holiday court, which remanded them to a day’s custody.
Later that evening, on October 3, the NCB arrested five more persons: Nupur Satija, Ishmeet Singh Chadha, Mohak Jaiswal, Gomit Chopra and Vikrant Chhokar — all residents of Gurugram, Greater Noida and Delhi. Chhokar and Chada were the first to be apprehended by the NCB on the evening of October 2, just as they were about to board the cruise ship. Search revealed that Chhokar was purportedly carrying 5g of Mephedrone, 10g of cocaine and 10g of charas, while Chada allegedly possessed 15 Ecstasy tablets weighing 6.5g and ₹40,000 in cash.
The remaining six of the original 14 who were apprehended from the cruise ship were set free.
On October 4, the agency produced all eight before the NDPS court in South Mumbai’s Fort area, and after hearing arguments, the additional chief metropolitan magistrate RM Nerlikar extended their custody till October 7.
During the interrogation Jaswal revealed the name of a drug supplier, Abdul Kadir Shaikh, NCB’s Wankhede told reporters. Shaikh was apprehended from Jogeshwari and agency officials claimed that they found Ecstasy and commercial quantity of Mephedrone on him. Chadha, another arrested accused, revealed the identity of another drug peddler — Goregaon resident Shreyas Nair — and he was apprehended the same day. NCB officials found a small quantity of Charas in his possession.
The NDPS Act divides seized contraband into three categories based on quantity, mandating different treatment for each: small, intermediate and commercial. The quantity in each category differs according to the drug.
Wankhede had, on the morning of October 4, received a call from the captain of the cruise ship as it returned to the Mumbai harbour saying that some guests (passengers) had created chaos after consuming drugs. Surprisingly, the NCB had permitted the cruise ship to travel to Goa after its raid.
This gave the NCB team cause to board the cruise ship again. This time, the team apprehended two guests: Manish Rajgaria and Avin Sahu. Their search recovered a small quantity of hydroponic weed, also known as multi strain Cannabis from the former’s possession. Both were arrested on October 4.
Shaikh, Nair, Rajgaria and Sahu were produced before a metropolitan magistrate’s court on October 5 and remanded to NCB custody till October 11. Meanwhile, the agency summoned several employees of a Delhi-based event management company and arrested four: Gopal Jee Anand, Samir Sehgal, Manav Singhal and Bhaskar Arora. The four were part of a band of event managers who organised a group tour to which Aryan Khan was invited.
On October 6, the agency arrested another alleged drug supplier, Achit Kumar, who purportedly had a small quantity of hydroponic weed known as Multi strain Cannabis. The NCB also arrested Nigerian national Chinedu Igwe from Andheri east and allegedly recovered 40 Ecstasy tablets (15g) from him.
The NCB was on a roll. On October 9, the agency arrested alleged drug peddler Shivraj Harijan with 62g of Charas from Santacruz. He was produced in the court on October 10 when NCB’s counsel Advait Sethana revealed that his name had cropped up during Merchant’s interrogation.
The same day, the NCB also recorded the statement of one Khan’s drivers in connection with the case, and conducted raids at film producer Imtiaz Khatri’s house in Bandra. On October 10, the agency arrested another Nigerian national, Okaro Ousma, from Goregaon east, allegedly in possession of cocaine.
Within a week of the first raid on the cruise ship, the anti-narcotics agency had arrested 20 persons.
The political blame-game
On October 6, senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik held a press conference in which he alleged that the arrest of Aryan Khan was a conspiracy involving the NCB and some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) functionaries from the city.
The NCP is in a coalition government with the Congress and the Shiv Sena (the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi). In the past year, the BJP and the coalition government have been at loggerheads over a range of issues, even as a number of state ministers have come under the scanner of central agencies such as the Income-Tax department, the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation. While coalition party leaders have alleged political targeting by the BJP, which is in power in the Centre but is in opposition in Maharashtra, BJP leaders have refuted this.
Malik’s claims questioned the presence of two persons present during the raid: Manish Bhanushali, a BJP worker and KP Gosavi, a private detective. In the press conference, Malik played two widely-circulated video clips of Khan and Merchant. In the first, KP Gosavi could be seen bringing Khan to the NCB office and in the second, Manish Bhanushali could be seen bringing Merchant to the agency’s office.
“In what capacity the NCB allowed two private individuals to bring high-profile accused to its office,” Malik asked, adding, “One of the two men identified by the NCP had also taken a selfie with Aryan Khan before he was formally placed under arrest on October 3.”
Two hours later, deputy director general of NCB Gyaneshwar Singh denied the allegations and clarified that Bhanushali and Gosavi were two of the nine independent witnesses in the case. “The allegations made against the agency are baseless and if anyone has any reservation, he or she can approach the court and we will appropriately reply to them,” Singh said.
Bhanushali, on his part, admitted that he was a BJP worker, and added that the NCB had conducted the raid on the basis of his tip. “I did not bring Arbaaz to the NCB office but was accompanying the NCB officers as I was asked by them to come and sign certain documents as a witness. The raid was conducted with the help of the information provided by me about the drug party,” Bhanushali told reporters.
Since then, Malik has held other press conferences. In one, he even claimed that his own son-in-law, Sameer Khan, was framed by the NCB when he was arrested for alleged drug possession in January. Sameer Khan is now out on bail.
Reacting to Malik’s first press conference, leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis told news agency ANI: “The primary question is not as to who was there, if they were affiliated with the BJP or not…”
Bail denied
On October 7, Khan, Merchant and six others were produced before a metropolitan magistrate. Immediately after the court rejected NCB’s plea for extension of their judicial custody, Khan, Merchant and Dhamecha applied for bail and their lawyers insisted for immediate hearing on the bail pleas. The NCB sought time to reply.
The next day, when the bail applications came up for hearing, additional solicitor general Anil Singh and advocate Advait Sethna, took preliminary objections on the ground of maintainability. The magistrate court accepted their claim that bail applications could only have been filed before and decided by a special NDPS court. Khan and the others were sent to Arthur Road jail where they were kept in barrack number 1, which served as a makeshift quarantine facility for new inmates. Dhamecha and another woman arrested in the case were sent to Byculla women’s prison.
Their bail applications were heard by special NDPS court judge V V Patil on October 13 and 14. Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Anil Singh represented NCB and argued that there was evidence to show that Aryan Khan was a regular consumer of drugs for the past few years. “They were going to the cruise and had planned to have a blast. The quantity of hard drugs that is found can’t be for personal consumption. It’s not a case for bail as the accused are influential and might tamper evidence,” Singh said.
Drug abuse is affecting youngsters, and being college-going boys should not be a consideration for bail, the Singh said, adding that the future of the country depends on this generation. “This is not what our freedom-fighters had in mind. This is the land of Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha. The investigation is at preliminary stage, this is not the stage for grant of bail,” he added.
Singh claimed that Khan’s Whatsapp chats revealed that he was in touch with a person abroad who appeared to be part of an international drug trafficking network. The NCB was in touch with the ministry of external affairs to identify people in the network, the ASG said.
“Though there are independent recoveries they can’t be taken in isolation. They (all the arrested accused) are all part of illicit drug chain. Whether you are found with drugs or not found with drugs or found with minor quantity of drugs, you cannot say nothing was found on you. We have found commercial quantity from one of the accused, 20 people have been arrested in the case. Charge of conspiracy has been applied, so accused can’t be segregated,” Singh said.
Senior advocate Amit Desai who represented Khan argued that the Whatsapp chats on which the federal investigative agency relied needed to be seen in context of the language of the youth, which may seem to be a “torture” for the older generation.
“By no stretch of imagination, the boy can be said to be involved in illicit drug trafficking or international drug racket etc. These allegations are false. The chats which the agency is relying upon needs to be seen in complete context, and checked [whether] they are jokes or banter…Today’s generation youth are different, they chat, they joke. A casual communication can sometimes look suspicious to the agencies. He was out of India for long. In a lot of other countries, such consumption is legal,” Desai said.
Desai countered Singh’s argument stating that the NCB was pointing to an international trafficking racket, but if the consumer stated from where he procured drugs, then “the chain was complete”.
The judge reserved the order to October 20. On Wednesday, the judge refused the bail pleas of Khan, Merchant and Damecha.
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