Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Sunday alleged that Narcotics Control Bureau’s Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede was part of a plan to kidnap Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan.

The Narcotics Control Bureau had detained Aryan Khan after a raid on a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai on October 2. During the raid, the agency claimed to have seized 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy) and Rs 1.3 lakh from the ship.

No drugs were recovered from Aryan Khan. But, investigators have alleged that he is part of a larger conspiracy to procure drugs from an international network. The 23-year-old spent over three weeks in prison before getting bail in the case.

At a press conference, Malik on Sunday said that Aryan Khan had not purchased the ticket for the cruise party. Aryan Khan was brought to the ship by his friends Pratik Gaba and Amir Furniturewala, he added.

The Nationalist Congress Party leader said this was a “matter of kidnapping and ransom”. He also alleged that Bhartiya Janata Party leader Mohit Kamboj was the mastermind of the plot and a partner of Wankhede in demanding ransom.

Malik claimed that Wankhede had met Kamboj at a graveyard in suburban Oshiwara on the night of October 7.

He added that Kamboj’s brother-in-law Rishab Sachdeva “set the trap”, while others ensured that Aryan Khan reached the cruise ship to attend the party.

“They were going to demand a ransom of Rs 25 crore,” Malik alleged. “Aryan Khan received bail after paying Rs 18 crore.”

Malik also claimed that a drug peddler had allegedly forced his colleague and Maharashtra textile minister Aslam Shaikh to come to the cruise party, India Today reported.

“Kashif Khan [the alleged drug peddler] was also planning to bring children of various ministers of our government to the party,” Malik said. “If Aslam Shaikh had gone there, it would have been Udta Maharashtra after Udta Punjab.”

Malik was referring to the 2016 Bollywood movie about the rampant drug abuse problem in Punjab.

Meanwhile, Kamboj claimed that Malik’s comments confirmed that Shaikh had links with Kashif Khan and that the children of Nationalist Congress Party leaders were in touch with drug peddlers, ANI reported.

On Friday, Kamboj had suggested that some Maharashtra ministers might be trying to extort money from Shah Rukh Khan, NDTV reported.

In the past few days, Malik has levelled a number of allegations against Wankhede. He had claimed that Wankhede used forged documents to get his job under the Scheduled Caste quota and that he had 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.

On Friday, a Special Investigation Team of the Narcotics Control Bureau, supervised by Sanjay Kumar Singh, deputy director general of the agency’s headquarters in Delhi, took over the investigation into the drugs case from Wankhede.