After the shifting of Sameer Wankhede, a newly constituted Special Investigation Team led by Narcotics Control Bureau Deputy Director General Sanjay Singh on Saturday started its probe in six-high profile cases, including the cruise raid case involving Aryan Khan.
Singh, a 1996 batch IPS officer of Odisha cadre, arrived in Mumbai on Saturday.
The other prominent cases under his charge will include the one involving Nawab Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan, actor Arman Kohli’s case and the drug cases of Mumbra, Jogeshwari and Dongri.
"We have taken over six cases. Sameer Wankhede is Zonal Director of Mumbai NCB, and we will take the assistance of the zone in the probe," said Singh during a media interaction on Saturday.
The NCB shifted Wankhede from the investigating team a week after the agency initiated a probe into the alleged allegations of bribery and extortion against him.
"The reports that certain cases have been snatched from me or that I have been ‘removed’ are not true. I am still working as NCB Mumbai Zonal Director. I had filed a writ petition in the court saying that the cruise raid case should be given to another unit for further probe," Wankhede told the Free Press Journal on Friday.
He said following his request, an SIT was formed, which is now headed by an IPS officer. "The only thing that has happened is that the cases have been transferred from Mumbai's investigating officer to Delhi's investigating officer," he explained.
The investigations into the cruise raid case had come to a halt after actor Ananya Panday informed NCB last month that she wanted some more time to appear before the agency to record her statement.
NCB sources stated that henceforth the SIT team would investigate this case.
Meanwhile, NCB sources said that the Special Enquiry Team (SET) headed by DDG Gyaneshwar Singh, which was looking into the allegations levelled by cruise case witness Prabhakar Sail, is likely to visit Mumbai on Monday and record statements of those people who could not be contacted earlier, including Sail and Gosavi.
A 22-member team headed by NCB Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede had conducted a raid on October 2 on the cruise liner. The agency had arrested 20 persons, including two Nigerian nationals.
Following the raid, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Mallik had levelled sevaral allegations against Wankhede, including charges of payoff, procuring a fake caste certificate, lavish lifestyle beyond known sources of income, and targeting of high-profile individuals, especially from Bollywood, with insignificant drug seizures, etc.
