Express News Service
MUMBAI: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had summoned Aryan Khan for questioning in connection with drugs-on-cruise-case on Sunday however Aryan Khan failed to appear citing health reasons.
Aryan Khan was asked to record his statement between 6 pm and 8 pm on Sunday. However, he has told NCB that he is suffering from a mild fever, therefore he won’t appear on Sunday and will come the day after tomorrow.
The SIT had already summoned Arbaaz Merchant and Achit Kumar for questioning in connection with the case. Both reappeared before NCB’s SIT on Sunday.
After a slew of serious allegations such as extortion, blackmailing, bogus caste certificate, planting drugs, etc against NCB Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede by NCP minister Nawab Malik, the NCB set the vigilance to initiate a probe against Wankhede. Meanwhile, the NCB also set up an SIT to probe all these serious charges against Sameer Wankhede and the six cases, including the Cordelia cruise drug seizure case in which Aryan Khan was arrested last month and Sameer Khan, son in law of Nawab Malik’s cases, was transferred from NCB Mumbai zonal unit to the SIT team on last Friday.
Deputy Director-General Sanjay Kumar Singh heading SIT of NCB said that a fair and impartial investigation will be done in the six cases taken over by his team from NCB Mumbai including the drugs-on-cruise case.
The SIT team is also expected to record the statement of Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan in connection with a drugs case. Sameer Khan, who is currently out on bail, was arrested by the NCB in January this year.
Nawab Malik said that the SIT set up by NCB should carry out fair investigation in the cases. He said that in Aryan Khan and Sameer Khan cases, the charge sheet has been already filed, so the fresh relook will be done by the SIT.
“If the charge sheet is filed, the SIT should file the closure report saying nothing was there, but they should not use this relook as part of a vendetta against us. The government lab of Gujarat has already given a report in connection with Sameer Khan that nothing objectionable was found. Now, the NCB wants to re-verify it. Usually, accused used to do all these things but here central agencies are doing. This raises suspicion over the conduct of central SIT. But there is state SIT as well and that will do the fair probe. We trust the law and judiciary and are ready to fight it out legally,” Malik said.
