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The October 2021 raid at the Mumbai port jetty from where Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, was about to board a cruise boat to Goa, appeared prompted by the rush to make a “high value” arrest. (Express Photo by Amit Chakrabarty) The dropping of all charges against Aryan Khan and five others who were arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a raid on the passengers of a cruise ship is well deserved ignominy for the central investigating agency. Ever since the Sushant Singh Rajput suicide case, which saw several central investigation agencies launch parallel investigations on the premise that Mumbai Police had not covered all angles to the case, the NCB had apparently assigned itself the task of dismantling the “Bollywood drug citadel”. Red flags should have gone up in Delhi then, and the fact that they didn’t may have had more than a little to do with Maharashtra being an Opposition-ruled state, and the imminence of an election in Bihar, Rajput’s home state. No attempt was made, therefore, to rein in Sameer Wankhede, then the local head of the NCB, from his celebrity hunt. The October 2021 raid at the Mumbai port jetty from where Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, was about to board a cruise boat to Goa, appeared prompted by the rush to make a “high value” arrest. At the time, no drugs were found on him, and no test was conducted to ascertain if he or any of the others had used any narcotic substance. The entire case that Khan not only did drugs, but was also a part of a narcotics trafficking ring, rested on WhatsApp chats between him and his friends. Procedural flaws came to light, with serious questions raised on the credibility of at least two of the panch witnesses. The whole episode reeked of a campaign to take Khan down. Clearly, no lessons had been learnt from the stinging rebuke the Bombay High Court had delivered on the case contrived against Rhea Chakraborty, while granting the young actor bail.
It was only after a series of dramatic disclosures about the problems with the Aryan Khan case by NCP politician Nawab Malik that the NCB bosses set up a special investigation team to take over the case. Seven months later, it has admitted that there is no evidence against six persons including Khan. It has chargesheeted 14 others arrested at the time, but has abandoned Wankhede’s theory that all 20 were part of an “international conspiracy”. The NCB has indicated that Wankhede will be punished. But who will compensate for the time that the six young adults spent in jail while being branded as drug runners, with their parents not being spared either?
The shabby episode does nothing for the reputation of central investigating agencies. It has been apparent for some time that the government is not above wielding these agencies to fix political rivals and others who cross its path. Even without orders from the top, a bullheaded official can feel emboldened enough in the prevailing ecosystem to believe he can get away with acts that might be purely motivated by a personal or political agenda. It should be sobering that Wankhede drew not a little encouragement from cheerleaders in the electronic and social media exulting in the damage that was being done to the reputation of the Khan father and son, just like they did in the defamation of Chakraborty. In a case where so many have lost face, genuine closure will come only by bringing to book Wankhede and all those who misused their power and position to pursue a tawdry witch hunt in this high-profile case.
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