Cruise drug bust case: Wankhede terms bribe allegations ‘imaginary’

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday questioned Sameer Wankhede, former Mumbai zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), for around five hours as part of its probe into corruption charges against him and four others in connection with the October 2021 Cordelia cruise drugs bust case.

According to agency sources, Wankhede told the CBI that the allegations against hi, pertaining to the arrest of Aryan Khan being only an attempt for demanding money in lieu of his release/not booking him for possession of narcotics were false and a product of wild imagination.

The Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer had arrived at the CBI office in Bandra-Kurla Complex at around 10.40am on Sunday. At around 1.20pm, the CBI officials had allowed him to go out for lunch for around an hour. Wankhede left the CBI office at around 4.26 pm. He only said, “Satyamev Jayate” (Truth alone triumphs), while declining to speak to mediapersons.

CBI sources said Wankhede was questioned about the core allegations contained in the agency’s First Information Report that it had registered on May 11. The CBI case was registered against Wankhede, Vishwa Vijay Singh, then NCB superintendent, and Ashish Ranjan, then intelligence officer of the NCB’s Mumbai zonal unit, as well as individuals namely KP Gosavi, Sanville D’Souza, and unknown persons.

The agency has accused the five people booked in the case of conspiring to extort ₹25 crore from Shah Rukh Khan in lieu of not booking his son Aryan Khan in the case and subsequently obtaining a bribe of ₹50 lakh from the actor.

On October 2, 2021, a team from the NCB’s Mumbai zonal unit carried out a search on the Goa-bound Cordelia and arrested Aryan Khan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant, and others, including two women. The NCB claimed that it had seized some narcotics as well. In May 2022, the NCB gave a clean chit to Aryan and five others.

The CBI’s case is connected to the revelations made by Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the NCB case.

Wankhede maintained before the CBI that the allegations were false and could be seen clearly from the WhatsApp messages sent by Aryan’s father, Shah Rukh Khan. Wankhede claimed that Khan had not only allegedly praised Wankhede’s integrity but also expressed his anguish over the political involvement in the case, the sources said, adding that the IRS officer claimed that Khan’s tone would have been different had he attempted to make a demand of bribe for releasing or giving any relief to his son.

The WhatsApp chats between the two allegedly took place between October 3 to 15 in 2021 and according to Wankhede.

Wankhede also told the CBI that Aryan had, via his written submission filed in a bail application dated October 26, 2021, in the Bombay high court, denied any connection with the bribery allegations surfacing against the former on public/social media, the sources said.

Wankhede also maintained that Aryan had confirmed that he had no connection/concern with Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the NCB case, who had made the bribery allegations via an affidavit dated October 23, 2021.

Wankhede said that the Special Investigation Team that had looked into Sail’s allegations was required to close its probe as not a single person had appeared before it.

Wankhede also claimed that the Mumbai Zonal Unit, which worked under him, arrested Aryan on October 3, 2021 in the case under the supervision of the then three NCB deputy director generals and the then NCB director general. Wankhede also accused a then NCB superior of acting as complainant, investigator, judge and a witness and attempting to cover up his own conduct.

Sources said that Wankhede also mentioned the case of Sudhakar Shinde, a former junior intelligence officer of the NCB’s Mumbai Zone, who was repatriated to his parent organisation in July 2022 after departmental proceedings. Wankhede referred to the chargesheet that had been issued to Shinde, wherein a senior NCB officer was made a witness despite him being a part of the vigilance team. The same senior NCB officer was also Wankhede’s superior in the drug bust case. Shinde was accused of misconduct, while being a part of the NCB team that carried out a search and seizure operation at the house of a case suspect Aachit Kumar, on October 5, 2021. Kumar had allegedly exchanged WhatsApp conversations with Aryan regarding purchase of narcotics.