No evidence found against Aryan Khan in drug case, concludes Special Investigation Team
The report further added that contrary to the allegations of NCB’s Mumbai unit, some of the key findings of the SIT, shared with the publication by officials included, “Aryan Khan was never in possession of drugs hence there was no need to take his phone and check his chats. The chats do not suggest Khan was part of any international syndicate. The raid was not video-recorded as mandated by the NCB manual and the drugs recovered from multiple accused arrested in the case shown as single recovery.”
The report also shared that the SIT probe is not complete and it could take a couple of months before the unit submits its final report to NCB Director General S N Pradhan. “A legal opinion will be taken before the final decision, particularly on the aspect whether Khan can be charged for consumption even though Aryan was not carrying any drugs,” said one of the officers.
The publication further added that the SIT probe “seems to raise more questions over the raid itself, and the conduct of the agency’s former Mumbai Zonal Unit director Sameer Wankhede.” The said inspector has been examined multiple times – both by the SIT and the agency’s vigilance team – to get to the truth in the case.
In November last year, a Mumbai court had stated there wasn’t sufficient evidence against Aryan. “There is hardly any positive evidence on record to convince this Court that all the accused persons with common intention agreed to commit unlawful act. Merely because Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant, and Munmun Dhamecha were travelling on the same cruise, that by itself cannot be a foundation for the charge of conspiracy against them,” the court order read.
Backstory:
Inspector Wakhande led a team of officers and some witnesses last year to raid a cruise ship, Cordelia, at International Cruise Terminal at Green Gate in Mumbai. On October 2, Aryan was detained by the NCB for an alleged drug bust on a cruise before the youngster boarded it. He was soon taken into custody and consequently arrested. The 23-year-old was then sent to a 14-day judicial remand.
The central agency said it was investigating “suspicious transactions constituting offences” under the Act. It said the total recovery, in this case, was 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 22 pills of MDMA (Ecstasy) – all categorised as “intermediate quantities” – and 21 grams of charas, which falls in the category of “small quantity”. The recovery also included INR130,000 in cash, it said.
Even after several bail attempts, Aryan sat behind bars without evidence of finding drugs on him for 28 days. On October 9, Aryan approached the session’s court after the detailed 15-page order was made available by the Mumbai magistrate court.
In the order, it was revealed that Aryan has not been found in possession of drugs. He has been ‘charged with the consumption of drugs’, the publication reported. So why did NCB oppose the bail plea? According to the bureau, the star kid’s WhatsApp was filled to the brim with evidence of his involvement with the consumption of drugs. So much so that the bureau has assumed what Aryan’s lawyer said were chats about football, was in reality his admittance to smuggling drugs in ‘bulk quantities’.
