Mumbai: A special narcotics court in the city on Tuesday remanded Agisilaos Demetriades, brother of actor Arjun Rampal’s partner Gabriella Demetriades, in judicial custody till November 3 in the drug case connected with late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is probing.
Agisilaos retracted his statement given to the agency when produced in court. His advocate Kushal Mor said the half-page retraction statement read that the statement he had given to the agency over the past two days since his arrest on Sunday are retracted and did not mention any reasons for doing so.
Appearing for the agency before a magistrate court on Sunday, Special Public Prosecutor Atul Sarpande had told the court that Agisilaos is directly connected to a co-accused in the case from whom a commercial quantity of drugs was seized.
The NCB also told the court that Agisilaos knew many drug dealers, was in touch with them and transacting with them. His custodial interrogation was needed to find who is delivering contraband in Bollywood and had sought his custody for four days until Thursday, it had said. His custody, however, was granted till Tuesday.
On Tuesday, he had been produced before the special court as his custody ended. The court also extended the judicial custody of Rhea Chakraborty’s brother Showik Chakraborty till 3 November. The judicial custody of other co-accused – Zaid Vilatra, Dwayne Fernandes, Ankush Arneja, Suryadeep Malhotra, Rahil Vishram, Karamjeet Singh, Kshitij Prasad, Anuj Keshwani – was also extended similarly.
The co-accused who had got bail – Rhea Chakraborty, Samuel Miranda, Dipesh Sawant –appeared before the court as required and it directed them to appear on 3 November before it.
Mumbai: Dipesh Sawant, former domestic help of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, has filed a petition in the Bombay High Court alleging he was illegally detained by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) before being produced in a local court. Sawant in his plea filed earlier this month has sought compensation of Rs 10 lakh from the NCB. The plea came up on Monday before a division bench of Justices SS Shinde and MS Karnik which posted it for hearing on November 6.
Sawant has been accused of interacting with peddlers and procuring drugs, allegedly on behalf of Rajput, and has been charged under Narcotic Drugs Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
Sawant, who is presently out on bail, in his plea, claimed violation of his fundamental rights by NCB officials who failed to produce him before the metropolitan magistrate court within 24 hours of taking him into custody.
As per the petition, NCB took Sawant in their custody from his residence in suburban Chembur on September 4 at around 10pm, but he was produced before the magistrate on September 6 afternoon some 36 hours later.
The petition also alleged the NCB wrongly recorded he was arrested on September 5 at 8pm.
"The petitioner was in illegal detention and this is in gross violation of Articles 21 (right to life and liberty) and 22 (any person arrested to be produced before concerned court within 24 hours)," the plea said.
