Aryan Khan drug case: Shiv Sena targets NCB, says officers trying to extort money by framing youngsters must be arrested

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The Shiv Sena on Monday said every officer who was trying to extort money by falsely implicating youngsters should be put behind bars, days after the Bombay High Court in its detailed order granting bail to Aryan Khan and two others in the drugs-on-cruise case observed that prima facie it had not found any positive evidence against the accused to show that they had conspired to commit an offence.

Hitting out at Central agencies in the party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, the Sena said their actions in Maharashtra smell like some kind of a conspiracy and cited the arrest of Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, and former home minister Anil Deshmukh, currently in judicial custody in connection with a money laundering case registered by the ED.

Flagging the Aryan Khan’s case, the Sena said the High Court in its order has observed that there is no truth in the charges levelled by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

Aryan Khan was arrested by the NCB allegedly during a raid on a cruise ship last month in Mumbai. He was in jail for nearly a month before the HC granted him bail.

In its detailed order, the high court had said that prima facie no positive evidence was found against the accused to show that they had conspired to commit an offence.

“If this (the observations of the Bombay High Court) is true then every officer who was trying to extort money for falsely implicating youngsters should be arrested,” the Sena said.

A Delhi NCB team is currently probing the allegations of pay-off against its Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, who has been in the eye of a political storm after Aryan was arrested.

The Shiv Sena, which heads the Maha Vikas Aghadi, also lauded NCP minister Nawab Malik for bringing out new evidence to light in the Aryan Khan case. Malik, who has dubbed the raid on the cruise liner fake, has accused Wankhede of trying to extort money using Aryan Khan as bait.

Targetting the Enforcement Directorate, which had arrested Deshmukh in a money laundering case, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said the agency’s work mirrors NCB.

“The way the agencies have camped themselves only in Maharashtra and the way they function gives a feeling that there is some kind of conspiracy,” the party said.

‘Saamana’ also quoted NCP chief Sharad Pawar who had last week said those involved in the arrest of Deshmukh will have to pay the price and insisted that the former minister is innocent.

“In one case (the Aryan Khan case), one (the NCB) agency got a slap on its face. Others will meet the same fate soon,” the Sena said.