Drugs-On-Cruise Case: Who Will Be Held Responsible For ‘Trauma’ Aryan Khan Suffered, Asks NCP

“Who will be held responsible for the trauma this young man suffered? Many questions arise,” the NCP spokesman added.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan (Picture Courtesy: @___aryan___/Instagram)

New Delhi: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Friday welcomed the clean chit given to Aryan Khan by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in the drugs-on-cruise case and asked who would be held responsible for the trauma suffered by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son. “If Aryan Khan was clean, why was he tainted? What was the motive?” PTI quoted NCP spokesman Clyde Crasto as saying.

“Who will be held responsible for the trauma this young man suffered? Many questions arise,” the NCP spokesman added.

NCP chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase on his part said the NCB giving a clean chit to Aryan Khan proves that Maharashtra minister and his party leader Nawab Malik was right when he had said that this case was fake.

Tapase said Malik had criticized the way raids were conducted and witnesses identified.

“Whatever Malik said holds ground. Witnesses had claimed that they were made to sign on blank papers and there were financial transactions involved. Sameer Wankhede is answerable to the people of this country,” Tapase said.

The NCP chief spokesperson further said the writing on the wall is very clear that the objections raised by Malik regarding the way the entire raid was conducted and selection of witnesses having close affinity with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was valid.

“Nawab Malik raised serious questions over the functioning and character of Sameer Wankhede. We have always maintained that the NCB is a very credible organisation having impeccable track record, but the way things were happening in the recent times put question marks on the conduct of the organisation,” he said.

Tapase said that Malik made serious allegations against Wankhede, thereby drawing the ire of some powerful people in Delhi.

“Today, Malik is paying a price for speaking the truth,” he added.

Malik echoed similar sentiments wondering whether the NCB will now initiate action against Wankhede.

“Now that Aryan Khan and 5 others get a clean chit. Will NCB  take action against Sameer Wankhede his team and the private army? Or will it shield the culprits?” Office of Nawab Malik tweeted.

Malik’s daughter Sana Malik Shaikh while reacting to the development in the case said “truth always prevails”.

“Farziwada exposed! Truth always prevails!” she wrote on the micro-blogging platform.

The Congress alleged that the entire case was part of a “larger conspiracy” to topple Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in which it shares power with the Shiv Sena and NCP.

“We were saying from day one that the case was part of a larger conspiracy to destablise the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government (of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress),” Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe said.

Nawab Malik had after Aryan Khan’s arrest in October last year accused Sameer Wankhede, the Narcotics Control Bureau's former Mumbai zonal director, of wrongly framing people in drugs cases, and securing government job by forging his documents.

Alleging that the raid onboard a Mumbai cruise was “forgery”, Malik had said that it was carried out at the behest of the BJP to frame Aryan Khan.

Earlier in the day, the NCB gave a clean chit to Aryan Khan in the ‘drugs on cruise’ case. The officials of the NCB, which filed its chargesheet in a Mumbai court, said the Bollywood superstar’s son and five others had not been named due to “lack of sufficient evidence”.

Asserting that its Special Investigation Team (SIT) carried out its probe in an “objective manner”, the NCB said in a statement in Delhi that “the touchstone of the principle of proof beyond reasonable doubt has been applied”.

Aryan Khan was arrested in the case by the NCB on October 3 last year and released from jail later that month after being granted bail.

An NCB team led by Wankhede had conducted a raid on the cruise ship, after which 20 persons, including Aryan Khan, were arrested.