Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik has shared screenshots of WhatsApp messages allegedly exchanged between KP Gosavi, an independent witness in the Mumbai drugs bust case, and an informer, claiming that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had planned to entrap people who were scheduled to attend a party on the Cordelia cruise last month.
Malik has been alleging that the NCB did not honestly raid the cruise ship, and instead, picked up only certain individuals from the terminal before they could board it.
Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, was among several people arrested by the NCB in connection with the case. The film star’s son was later released on bail.
Nawab Malik has claimed that Aryan Khan was “kidnapped and a ransom was sought to let him of”, but eventually arrested him after the initial plan failed.
In a bid to underline his claims, Malik tweeted screenshots of chat messages on Tuesday.
“Here are WhatsApp chats between KP Gosavi and an informer, which show how they were planning to trap people who were going to attend a party on the Cordelia cruise. This is Sameer Dawood Wankhede’s ‘private army’. Therefore, he has a lot to answer,” Nawab Malik alleged in a tweet.
Malik, Maharashtra’s minorities minister, had in the past alleged that the NCB’s Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede had formed an “army of private individuals” to extort money from drug peddlers, and Gosavi was allegedly part of the network.
Sameer Wankhede has refuted all the allegations made by the Maharashtra minister.
According to the purported chat messages, as shared by Malik, between Gosavi and an unnamed person, a WhatsApp group was formed for communication and around 35 NCB officials were part of it.
Following a spate of allegations surrounding the drugs bust case, the NCB itself formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the charges. Mumbai Police also formed a separate SIT to probe claims of extortion in connection with the case.