Sameer Wankhede off Aryan Khan case as NCB transfers investigation to Delhi team
The officer, however, downplayed the development saying he had asked for the matter to be probed by a central agency.
The Narcotics Control Bureau on Friday transferred the drugs case involving actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan and five other matters from the agency’s Mumbai zonal unit headed by Sameer Wankhede to its operations unit based in Delhi, PTI reported.
Narcotics Control Bureau Deputy Director General Mutha Ashok Jain told reporters that the move to let the Delhi unit investigate the six cases was an administrative decision. Jain said these cases have “wider and inter-state ramifications”.
In a statement, the Narcotics Control Bureau stressed that no officers have been removed from their current roles. “They’ll continue to assist the Operations Branch investigation as required until any specific orders are issued to the contrary,” it added. “It’s reiterated that the NCB functions across India as a single integrated agency.”
Wankhede also refuted reports that he had been removed from the inquiry into the Mumbai drugs case.
“It was my writ petition in court that the matter be probed by a central agency,” he said, according to ANI. “So Aryan case and Sameer Khan case are being probed by Delhi NCB’s SIT [Special Investigation Team]. It’s a coordination between NCB teams of Delhi and Mumbai.”
The Special Investigation Team will be led by senior police officer Sanjay Singh, NDTV reported.
Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik, who has levelled a number of allegations against Wankhede, said the officer has been removed from investigating five cases, including the Mumbai drugs case.
“There are 26 cases in all that need to be probed,” he said in a tweet. “This is just the beginning...a lot more has to be done to clean this system and we will do it.”
The case involving Malik’s son-in-law and actor Armaan Kohli was among those transferred to the Delhi unit, reports said.
Aryan Khan and seven others had been arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau after a raid on a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai on October 2. Khan got bail in the case from the Bombay High Court on October 28.
Malik, who is leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, had claimed that Wankhede used forged documents to get his job under the Scheduled Caste quota and that he has been illegally tapping phones. He has also accused the Narcotics Control Bureau zonal director of being part of an extortion racket linked to drug cases against Bollywood actors.
Prabhakar Sail, a witness in the drugs case, had also alleged that he had overheard private investigator Kiran Gosavi, another witness in the case, talk about a Rs 18 crore deal, of which Rs 8 crore was to be paid to Wankhede, who was part of the anti-drugs agency’s raid on the cruise ship.