Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Sunday accused the NCB’s Mumbai Zonal Unit director Sameer Wankhede of being part of a larger plot to kidnap Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan. In his latest allegation against Wankhede, Malik claimed that the NCB official and BJP leader Mohit Kamboj tried to kidnap Aryan and demand ransom. “Aryan Khan didn’t purchase the ticket for the cruise party…It’s a matter of kidnapping and ransom,” the Maharashtra Minister said, according to ANI. Malik also reiterated that there was a conspiracy hatched by a group of people to lure people like Aryan Khan onboard the ship and subsequently frame them in the drug case.
“Mohit Kamboj and Sameer Wankhede met outside Oshiwara graveyard on Oct 7. After which, Wankhede panicked and complained to the police that they were being chased,” he added. “They were lucky that the nearby CCTV was not working and we couldn’t get the feed.” On Friday, the Narcotics Control Bureau transferred six cases, including the alleged Cordelia drug bust case in which Aryan Khan was arrested, from Wankhede to a Special Investigation Team comprising officers from the operations branch at the NCB headquarters in New Delhi. On Saturday, Kamboj had alleged that one Sunil Patil from Dhule, "who is closely associated with NCP leaders, including former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh", was the mastermind of the cruise drug bust episode. Meanwhile, Wankhede's father has reportedly filed a defamation suit against Malik in the Bombay high court and sought ₹1.25 crore in damages. Malik further said one Kashiff Khan had invited Maharashtra minister Aslam Sheikh to the cruise party and had the Congress MLA and guardian minister of Mumbai attended the event, it would have been called ‘Udta Maharashtra’ ( on lines of the movie ‘Udta Punjab’ which was based the drug menace in the northern state).