Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, sent to NCB custody till 7 Oct; show empathy, urges Tharoor

A local court on Monday extended the NCB custody of Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and two others till 7 October in connection with the seizure of banned drugs onboard a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast.

The trio was produced before the court after the end of their one-day custody given to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Sunday. The NCB had arrested them after raiding the Goa-bound ship.

Hearing was still going on with regards to the custody of other accused arrested in the case.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate RM Nerlikar noted that the investigation in the case is of prime importance and considering this aspect, the presence of the accused before the NCB is necessary.

“The fact is that the co-accused in the case were found in possession of drugs and these three accused (Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha) were accompanying them. Investigation is of prime importance and hence it is useful for both the prosecution and the accused to prove their innocence,” the court said.

‘Repelled by ghoulish epicaricacy"

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday said he is repelled by the “ghoulish epicaricacy” of those “witch-hunting” actor Shah Rukh Khan over his son’s arrest and urged people to have empathy in the matter.

Tharoot tweeted:

I am no fan of recreational drugs & haven’t ever tried any, but I am repelled by the ghoulish epicaricacy displayed by those now witch-hunting @iamsrk on his son’s arrest. Have some empathy, folks. The public glare is bad enough; no need to gleefully rub a 23yr old’s face in it.

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) October 4, 2021

Aryan Khan and the two others – Munmun Dhamecha and Arbaaz Merchant- were arrested on Sunday evening and produced before a special holiday court that remanded them to NCB custody till Monday.

Six other accused - Nupur Satija, Ishmeet Chadha, Mohak Jaiswal, Gomit Chopra, Vikrant Chhokar and a drug supplier from suburban Juhu, were arrested late on Sunday and produced before the magistrate’s court on Monday.

The NCB on Monday sought further custody of Aryan Khan, Merchant and Dhamecha till 11 October on the ground that the agency wanted to confront all the arrested accused with each other. Opposing the custody sought by the NCB, Aryan Khan’s advocate Satish Maneshinde argued that his client had no criminal antecedents and has shown good conduct.

Aryan Khan did not run away from NCB officers when the raid was being conducted and had allowed them to search him, Maneshinde said. Aryan Khan and the other accused were detained late Saturday night by NCB sleuths after they raided the cruise ship that was on its way to Goa from Mumbai.

NCB searches cruise ship on its return to Mumbai, detains eight

The Narcotics Control Bureau detained eight people after searching a cruise ship on its return to Mumbai on Monday, two days after a drugs party onboard the vessel was busted off the city coast, an NCB official said. The NCB also found some documents and some material, suspected to be drugs, after an over six-hour-long search onboard the ship, the official said, without divulging any further details.

The anti-drugs agency had on Saturday evening busted a drugs party on board the ship, of the Cordelia Cruises company, and arrested Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan and seven others, including two women.

On Monday, the NCB got information that the ship returned to the city after two days. Hence, NCB officials including its zonal director Sameer Wankhede reached the cruise terminal and conducted searches onboard the vessel, the official said.

The sleuths subsequently detained eight people and the latter were seen with travelling bags in their hands while they were being brought from the ship to the NCB’s office here.

After conducting searches on Monday, the NCB is likely to record the statement of the cruise ship manager and owner, the official said.

On Saturday evening, an NCB team, led by Wankhede, had raided the ship based on a tip-off that a party was scheduled on board. The sleuths seized 13 gm of cocaine, five gm of MD, 21 gm of charas and 22 pills of Ecstasy and Rs 1.33 lakh, an official earlier said.

During the raid, over 20 officials of the Mumbai NCB had boarded the ship posing as customers. There were 1,800 people on the ship, but after checking all were asked to go except the eight, including Aryan Khan, the official said.

Besides Aryan Khan, the arrested accused were identified as Munmun Dhamecha, Arbaaz Merchant, Ismeet Singh, Mohak Jaswal, Gomit Chopra, Nupur Sarika, and Vikrant Chhokar, the official said. A special holiday court had earlier remanded Aryan Khan, Munmun Dhamecha and Arbaaz Merchant in the NCB’s custody till Monday.

The anti-drugs agency had kept a close watch on the cruise ship event for 15-20 days after receiving information that a drug party would be organised. After confirmation, the NCB conducted the raid on Saturday, officials earlier said.

They had said the NCB may question officials of Delhi-based event management company Namas’cray, registered as Caneplus Trading Private Limited, and officials of the cruise company, Cordelia Cruises.

The (Delhi-based) firm was tasked with the management of the event onboard Cordelia Cruises’ Empress ship, which was supposed to take place from 2 to 4 October.

All known organisers of the event are now under the scanner of the NCB, an official of the anti-drug agency earlier said.

The cruise company in a statement on Sunday said it had nothing to do with the incident.

With inputs from PTI