Drugs on cruise case: NCB vigilance team visits cruise terminal

The Narcotics Control Bureau's Delhi vigilance team, probing the pay-off allegations in the Cordelia cruise drugs case in which actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan is an accused, arrived in Mumbai on Monday.

The team visited a spot outside the Indiana Hotel in Lower Parel area where Shah Rukh Khan's manager Pooja Dadlani and NCB's witness K P Gosavi had allegedly met.

The team members also visited the Mumbai cruise terminal where the Cordelia cruise ship, on which the party was organised on October 2, is docked.

The four-five member team, led by NCB's Deputy Director General (northern region) Gyaneshwar Singh, is also likely to visit a few other places and will also record the statement of Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the case.

The NCB on Sunday issued summons to Sail, who claims to be the bodyguard of Gosavi.

Sail had last month claimed in an affidavit that he had heard Gosavi discussing a Rs 25 crore pay-off deal after Aryan Khan was arrested by the NCB.

He claimed that Gosavi had said Rs 8 crore of the deal money was to be given to NCB's Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede.

Sail's allegations had prompted the NCB to order a vigilance inquiry against NCB officials and others.

Wankhede had denied the allegations against him.

Another person, named Sam D'Souza, whose name had cropped up in connection with the allegations of pay-off in the case, in his pre-arrest bail plea filed before the Bombay High Court last week claimed that Gosavi had taken Rs 50 lakh from Pooja Dadlani to get Aryan Khan released.

The amount was returned after the NCB arrested Aryan Khan in the case on October 3, D'Souza had said.

There were allegations of corruption and extortion against an NCB official and others including himself, and a deal of Rs 18 crore was struck for the release of "a prominent accused" (Aryan Khan), he had said in his plea.

D'Souza had also said he contacted Dadlani through a mutual friend and met her in Lower Parel area along with Gosavi.

This is the second visit of the NCB's Delhi vigilance team to Mumbai.

Last month, the vigilance team, headed by Gyaneshwar Singh, had come to Mumbai to probe the allegations of extortion, but failed to record Sail's statement. Singh is also the chief vigilance officer (CVO) of the federal anti-narcotics agency.

Before leaving for Delhi, the team had recorded statements of eight persons, including Wankhede, and collected some important documents and recordings related to the cruise drugs case, an official had said.

On Sunday, the NCB's Delhi SIT questioned Arbaaz Merchant and Achit Kumar in connection with the drugs-on-cruise case for over nine hours, an official earlier said.

The duo was summoned by the Special Investigation Team, headed by senior officer Sanjay Kumar Singh, which was entrusted with the investigation of six cases, including the cruise drugs case involving Aryan Khan.

According to an official, Aryan Khan failed to appear before the SIT on Sunday, citing fever.

It is a routine procedure to summon the accused after a new investigation team takes charge, the official had said.