Drugs case: Aryan Khan skips NCB SIT's summons on health grounds

The NCB’s SIT, headed by IPS officer Sanjay Kumar Singh, on Sunday summoned actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan and other accused in the cruise drugs bust case. However, Aryan failed to appear before the SIT citing slight fever. The SIT, headed by the NCB’s senior officer Sanjay Kumar Singh, reached Mumbai on Saturday, a day after the agency transferred to it the investigation in six cases, including the controversial cruise drugs case. While Aryan failed to appear before the SIT citing “slight fever”, his friend Arbaaz Merchant and co-accused Achit Kumar arrived at the NCB office and were quizzed for several hours. Sources said Aryan is expected to appear before the SIT in a day or two. “We are issuing summons to all the accused and people concerned in the six drug cases that are now being probed by the SIT,” said an NCB officer.

Singh was present at the NCB’s Ballard Estate office on Sunday. Merchant came in the morning to give his statement while Kumar arrived in the afternoon. On October 3, the NCB had raided a cruise off the Mumbai coast for illegal drugs, which led to the arrest of Aryan, among many others. He was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on October 28 after spending 25 days in jail. Following a slew of extortion and bribery allegations against Wankhede, who spearheaded the bust, the NCB transferred the case from him to the agency’s central team. SIT that was formed by  to look into the allegations made against the NCB, summoned Shah Rukh Khan’s manager Pooja Dadlani on Monday in connection with extortion-related allegations. On Sunday, the SIT also recorded the statement of one Sunil Patil whose name cropped up in the extortion allegations. Dadlani’s name came up in the affidavit of Prabhakar Sail, a witness in the Cordelia drugs bust case. Sail was the personal bodyguard of K P Gosavi, another witness in the case. Sail has alleged that Gosavi and one Sam D’ Souza connived and extorted Rs 50 lakh from Dadlani for not arresting Aryan. Sail had further alleged that Gosavi was working at the behest of an NCB official to extort Rs 25 crore from Khan to let off Aryan in the case. D’Souza on the other hand, in his anticipatory bail plea, which got rejected by Bombay HC last week, alleged that Gosavi and Sail are frauds and main conspirators.