Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s 23-year-old son Aryan Khan was arrested on Sunday following a raid at a celebration on a cruise liner off the coast of Mumbai last night by the Narcotics Control Bureau or NCB. Three others are arrested moreover.
Shah Rukh Khan was seen leaving his home and heading for his lawyer’s office shortly before the arrest was confirmed. Aryan Khan was also seen in a very viral video on social media allegedly shot after the raids.
The high-profile raid yielded 13 grams of cocaine, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA and 5 grams of MD all told, the NCB has said. the fees brought against Aryan Khan include purchase, possession and use of banned substances, it added. He was produced in court within the evening where the agency was granted custody of these arrested till Monday.
Aryan Khan’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde demanded bail, saying that he had been arrested only on the idea of chat messages. “Aryan had no ticket, no cabin or seat on board the cruise. He was there because he had been invited. He didn’t even have a boarding card. Nothing has been found on him. He was arrested on the idea of chat only.”
The NCB had earlier released the names of the eight those that had been detained for questioning from the ship – Munmun Dhamecha, Nupur Sarika, Ismeet Singh, Mohak Jaswal, Vikrant Chhoker, Gomit Chopra, Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant.
The NCB team boarded the Goa-bound ship disguised as passengers on Saturday morning, sources said. in line with officials, the party began after the ship left Mumbai and was bewildered. The raids began at 10 am and went on till 2 pm, it said.
Drugs like Ecstasy, Cocaine, MD (Mephedrone) and Charas were recovered from the party on board the ship, the agency said.
During the operation, the suspects were searched and different drugs were recovered from them, which they’d hidden in their clothes, undergarments and purses, an NCB official told.
The cruise company during a statement on Sunday said it had nothing to try to to with the incident.
“Cordelia Cruises is in no way, directly or indirectly, connected to the current incident. Cordelia Cruises had chartered its ship for a non-public event to a Delhi-based event management company,” Jurgen Bailom, Chief officer and President, Waterways Leisure Tourism Pvt Ltd said within the statement.
“We, at Cordelia Cruises, condemn all acts like these and can strictly refrain from letting our ship out for similar events within the future. Nonetheless, Cordelia Cruises is extending our full support and cooperating with the authorities,” it added.
The Congress, which is an element of the ruling coalition in Maharashtra, on Sunday alleged that the raid and subsequent action was an endeavor to divert attention from the “real issue” of the drugs seizure at Mundra port in Gujarat.
The Narcotics Control Bureau has stepped up action on anti-drugs cases since last year following the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and a wide-ranging investigation into alleged misuse.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence had also seized near 3,000 kg of heroin at Gujarat’s Mundra port early last month, and recovered around 37 kg of the narcotic drug, together with cocaine – or substance suspected to be the contraband items – from Delhi and Noida in state.
