KP Gosavi, who was brought in as an independent witness of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), and his aide Sanvile D’Souza conspired to extort Rs 25 crore from Aryan Khan’s family on behalf of Sameer Wankhede, then Zonal Director with the NCB, according to the first information report (FIR) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the drugs case involving actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son.
The amount was settled at Rs 18 crore later, the FIR stated, adding that Gosavi and D’Souza took Rs 50 lakh as bribe, but after a few hours, Gosavi returned a part of this token amount.
The FIR is based on the Special Enquiry Team (SET) which was set up by the NCB when witness number one of the case, Prabhakar Sail, alleged that Wankhede and Gosavi planned to extort a huge amount from Aryan Khan’s family.
Wankhede and two officials of his team did not follow the procedure of investigation in the case, the FIR added.
The CBI has booked Wankhede and others for alleged criminal conspiracy (120-B IPC), threat of extortion (388 IPC) besides provisions of bribery under the Prevention of Corruption Act on a complaint from the NCB.
FLOUTED RULES TO WANKHEDE’s SOURCE OF INCOME: FROM CBI FIR
- When they got a tip-off that drugs have been carried by passengers on the cruise Cordelia on October 2, 2021, the NCB team conducted a raid. They arrested Arbaz Merchant, who was having charas in his possession, but allowed a Siddharth Shah to walk free, even though he supplied the charas to Merchant, stated the FIR.
- Shah had also accepted that he had got money from Merchant for the sale of charas. Also, incriminating chats between the two were ignored.
- Gosavi, whose selfie with Aryan Khan went viral, was seen holding the hand of the accused and taking him inside the NCB office. According to the rules of NCB, only the officer on duty has the right to arrest the accused and take him / her in to custody.
- Moreover, Wankhede used a private vehicle to ferry the accused.
- In the FIR, the CBI has also mentioned the part of SET team’s report which states that during their inquiry, Wankhede could not properly explain his foreign visits and couldn’t give the details of expenditure on his foreign travels. He also couldn’t declare the source of money for his foreign visits. In the inquiry, it was also found that Wankhede had indulged in the sale and purchase of expensive wrist watches.
- During Khan’s arrest, drugs were not recovered from him, but he was still made accused in the case and was arrested by the NCB, stated the FIR.
WANKHEDE’s RESPONSE
Talking to News18 on the FIR, Wankhede, who is now an officer with the Indian Revenue Services (IRS), asked that if there have been transactions related to the Aryan Khan case, how is the person from whom he demanded money filing a complaint against him.
The former officer also called it a personal attack against him adding that he is an honest man.
NAWAB MALIK’s ‘TOLD YOU SO’ MOMENT
After Khan’s arrest, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA and former minister Nawab Malik had raised his voice against Wankhede.
Malik had alleged that Wankhede and his team want to extort the money from Khan’s family. Malik had called the investigation “farziwada".
Sail had also spoken about the extortion in the media. He had also submitted an affidavit, alleging Wankhede asked him to sign on blank papers and Gosavi hatched the conspiracy over the phone. In this case later Aryan Khan got clean cheat from the NCB as no evidences were found against him.
A coordinated search operation was launched on Friday at 29 locations in Mumbai, Delhi, Ranchi, Lucknow, Guwahati and Chennai after filing the FIR against the 2008-batch officer Wankhede and four others — then NCB Superintendent Vishwa Vijay Singh, Intelligence Officer Ashish Ranjan, Gosavi and D’Souza.
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