Wankhede let off an international drug lord in cruise ship raid: Nawab Malik
Malik also shared pictures of NCB officer’s Nikah with his first wife Dr Shabana Qureshi and the nikahnama to claim that the NCB zonal director had “forged documents” to make a Scheduled Caste certificate in order to get into public service commission
In his latest attack on the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) zonal director Sameer Wankhede, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik claimed on Wednesday that the NCB officer let an international drug lord, present in the rave party organised off the Mumbai coast on a cruise ship, off the hook and instead framed “certain individuals”. Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested in the case on October 3.
Malik said he had proof that an international drug lord was present at the Cordelia rave party along with his girl friend but the NCB team led by Wankhede chose not to act against him since the drug lord was his “friend”. Malik claimed he has the pictures and video footage to corroborate this and could share them with the NCB, if the agency approached him.
Aryan Khan was arrested by an NCB team that claimed to have busted an alleged drugs party on the Cordelia Cruise ship which was on its way to Goa on October 3 off the Mumbai coast. A total of 20 people, including two Nigerian nationals, have been arrested so far in the case. Aryan Khan has been denied bail in the case with the courts upholding NCB’s contention that there was enough material on record to suggest that Khan could have been involved in an international drugs racket. The defence has however argued that there was no proof of Khan’s involvement in any drugs racket and no basis for his arrest since drugs were not found in his possession.
The high profile matter took a further twist when Prabhakar Sail, a witness in the case, alleged on Monday that Wankhede and some other NCB officials had sought ₹25 crore from Shah Rukh Khan as extortion money to release Aryan. Following Sail’s allegation, a vigilance probe was ordered into Wankhede’s conduct and Mumbai Police too announced a probe against the officer.
Without naming Aryan Khan, Malik has now said that the party was organised with the mala fide intention of framing “certain” individuals.
“A rave party was organised, drugs were sold, people enjoyed themselves there, but no action on the drug lord present at the party. Cruise was not stopped, over 1300 people were not scanned. Instead, NCB deployed people with pictures of certain individuals with the intention of wrongly framing them,” Malik said.
“No seizure was made either from the cruise or the terminal. The pictures of seizure distributed by NCB are from Wankhede’s cabin based on which publicity was taken,” he continued.
Malik said that the rave party was organised without any permissions including from the Mumbai police or the state home department despite the Covid restrictions being in place. Only permission they had was from the director general (DG), Shipping.
Posing further questions on Wankhede’s integrity, Malik also shared pictures of NCB officer’s Nikah with his first wife Dr Shabana Qureshi and the nikahnama (marriage contract) on his Twitter handle to claim that the NCB zonal director had “forged documents” to make a Scheduled Caste (SC) certificate in order to get into public service commission.
“My point is to prove that Wankhede got a caste certificate with bogus documents and got a job as an IRS (Indian Revenue Service) officer. He has snatched away the right of a deserving Scheduled Caste (SC) candidate. I am trying to prove his fraud and not his religion,” he clarified.
