Cruise drugs case: 'Independent witness' visits Mumbai top cop after explosive 'bribe' claim

Prabhakar Sail, the independent witness in the cruise drugs case who made some explosive claims on Sunday, arrived at the Mumbai Police commissioner’s office on Monday to meet senior security officials. Sail visited the police commissioner’s office apparently in connection with his security concern, an official said. He reached the commissioner’s office premises at around 11.20 am and will meet Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Milind Bharambhe, the official said. On Sunday, Sail told media persons that he feared a threat to his life and had claimed he could be harmed. Sail, the ‘independent witness’, had claimed that Rs 25 crore was demanded by an official of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and other persons, including absconding witness KP Gosavi, to let off Aryan Khan in the cruise drugs case. He had said that he overheard Gosavi telling one Sam D’Souza over the phone, after Aryan Khan was brought to the NCB office following the 3 October raid, about a demand of Rs 25 crore and “to settle at Rs 18 crore as they have to give Rs eight crore to Sameer Wankhede”, the zonal director of NCB. He also claimed NCB officials had asked him to sign nine to ten blank papers.  However, a senior NCB official had denied the allegations, terming them as “completely false and malicious”. Wankhede on Sunday wrote to Mumbai police commissioner Hemant Nagrale, seeking protection from likely legal action “being planned” against him by unknown persons to falsely frame him concerning an alleged vigilance related issue. Sail also shared a video purportedly showing Gosavi recording audio of Aryan Khan at the NCB office, in which hotelier Kunal Jani, who was earlier arrested in a separate drugs case, was also briefly seen. The video that showed Jani, who is the director of a prominent restaurant in Bandra in Mumbai, at the NCB’s office, triggered speculations that he had some connection in the raid conducted by the anti-drugs agency on the cruise ship earlier this month that led to the alleged seizure of drugs and arrest of Aryan Khan and others. However, sources in the NCB said that Jani was arrested by the agency in a separate drugs case and he was present at its office when Aryan Khan was brought there as his (Jani’s) statement was also being recorded. Jani was arrested by the NCB on 30 September in connection with a drug case wherein Agisilaos Demetriades, brother of actor Arjun Rampal’s partner, is also an accused. Demetriades was accused of running a drug syndicate. Jani got out on bail on 10 October. Also read:  A guide to the much-debated NDPS Act NCB sources said that Jani’s name first appeared in the case linked to actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials found a chat group of Jani and Rhea Chakraborty where drugs were being discussed. Actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra is a partner in Jani’s hotel. Kundra is an accused in the case of a pornographic film, who got out on bail last month. Also read:  What Aryan Khan supporters need to know about  India's drug war With inputs from agencies