Aryan Khan’s NCB custody ends today, will seek bail in drugs case

Aryan Khan will be produced before a court in Mumbai on Thursday for bail in a case related to seizure of drugs onboard a cruise ship. Khan and two others are in the custody of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), which first detained and then arrested them after a raid on the ship off the coast of Mumbai.

Khan’s custody is ending today (October 7) and his counsel will again apply for bail.

At the last hearing on October 4, the NCB told the Esplanade court that it found WhatApp chats, which it claimed were discussions with peddlers and sought custody of Aryan Khan, Arbaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha to investigate the links. The court then extended the trio’s custody till October 7.

The lawyer of the 23-year-old, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, told the court that Aryan Khan was invited to the ship as a guest and that he was not even allotted any seat or cabin. The lawyer Satish Maneshinde denied Aryan Khan’s link with peddlers and accusing the NCB of basing its case solely on WhatApp chats without finding recovering from his client.

Meanwhile, the NCB said that it has so far arrested 16 people in connection with the case. NCB Mumbai director Sameer Wankhede on Wednesday said that there are some links related to Bitcoin.

The NCB raid was conducted on October 2.

A political slugfest has started, with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – part of the three-party ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance – terming the raids as “fake”, alleging no drugs were found during it, even as it questioned the presence of two persons along with the NCB team during the raid, claiming one of them was a member of the Bharaitya Janata Party (BJP).

Both the NCB and BJP denied the NCP charges as “baseless”.

“One of them is Manish Bhanushali, who claims to be a BJP office-bearer and the other is KP Gosawi, who claims to be a private detective,” Maharashtra minorities affairs minister and NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said at a press conference on Wednesday.

“According to the Bhanushali’s Facebook profile, he is a BJP vice president and has photos with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, BJP chief JP Nadda…,” Malik claimed.

Bhanushali later told a TV channel that he was a BJP worker and that the NCB conducted the raid based on his tip.

With Thanks, Reference to: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/aryan-khan-s-ncb-custody-ends-today-will-seek-bail-in-drugs-case-101633565056786.html