Cruise ship drugs case: Mumbai court sends Aryan Khan, 7 others to judicial custody for 14 days

A Mumbai court on Thursday sent Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, and seven others to 14-day judicial custody in connection with the alleged seizure of banned drugs from a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast. Their bail applications will be heard tomorrow (Friday, 8 October) at 11 am, the court said. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had sought an extension of their NCB custody till 11 October, but the request was not granted.

#UPDATE | Mumbai court sends Aryan Khan, Arbaz Merchant and 6 others to judicial custody for 14 days in drugs seizure at cruise ship

Court says the case will now be heard by special NDPS court https://t.co/8rqko8epsc

— ANI (@ANI) October 7, 2021

As per ANI, the accused will be remain at the NCB office in judicial custody till tomorrow because jail would not accept new inmates at this hour. This after  lawyer Satish Maneshinde has moved interim bail for Aryan Khan. Arbaz Seth Merchant on Thursday also filed for a bail plea and application at Mumbai’s Esplanade court seeking “CCTV footage of cruise ship to check if Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) recovered something from Arbaz or it was planted on him”. As many as 18 arrests have been made in the cruise ship raid case so far. An NCB team busted an alleged drugs party on the Cordelia Cruise ship which was on its way to Goa at mid-sea on 2 October night. Eight persons including Aryan Khan, Arbaz Seth Merchant, Munmun Dhamecha, Vikrant Chhoker, Ismeet Singh, Nupur Sarika, Gomit Chopra and Mohak Jaswal were produced before Mumbai’s Esplanade Court on Monday which remanded them to NCB custody till 7 October. They were arrested on 3 October in connection with the drug seizure on the cruise ship. As per the NCB, three persons have been booked under Section 8C, 20B, 27 (Punishment for consumption of any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance) and 35 (Presumption of culpable mental state) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act). 8C of NDPS Act refers to prohibition to produce, manufacture, possess, sell, purchase, transport, warehouse, use, consume, import inter-State, export inter-State, import into India, export from India or tranship any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance while Section 20B deals with punishment for producing, manufacturing, possessing, selling, purchasing, transportation, imports inter-State, exports inter-State or use of cannabis. Mumbai’s Esplanade court on Thursday sent another person to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) custody, in connection with the Mumbai cruise party raid, till 9 October. Achit Kumar is the 17th person arrested by the NCB in connection with the case and was arrested by NCB from the Powai area on Tuesday night and seized drugs from his possession. His arrest was made after his name was disclosed by Aryan Khan and Arbaz Seth Merchant. With inputs from ANI