Responding to yet another allegation from Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik that his family is involved in the drugs business, anti-drugs office Sameer Wankhede has said he wasn't even in service when the case happened. Mr Wankhede is the Mumbai zonal head of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and was part of the team that arrested Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan and others in the drug-on-cruise case off the shore of Mumbai. “I wasn't even in service when the case happened in Jan 2008. I married Kranti Redkar in 2017, then how am I associated with the case anyway?” he told news agency ANI.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and Maharashtra's minister for minority affairs Nawab Malik had questioned Mr Wankhede's sister-in-law's involvement in a drugs case. He shared screenshots with the case details in a tweet. “Sameer Dawood Wankhede, is your sister-in-law Harshada Dinanath Redkar involved in the drug business? You must answer because her case is pending before the Pune court. Here is the proof,” he said.
Mr Wankhede's father Dnyaneshwar Wankhede has also filed a defamation case against Nawab Malik for 1.25 crore for dragging his family in the drugs-on-cruise case. He has also requested the Mumbai High Court to ban the media from reporting news on his family.
The anti-drugs officer has been in the crosshairs of the minister who had earlier also shared purported WhatsApp chats of his sister Yasmeen Wankhede with an alleged drug peddler on Twitter. "Screenshot of the WhatsApp chat between Yasmeen Dawood Wankhede (sister of NCB official Sameer Dawood Wankhede) and a drug peddler. The question arises, is this morally, ethically, and legally right?" he had tweeted on Tuesday. The minister has also accused Mr Wankhede of trying to extort money from Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan after kidnapping his son and forging a caste certificate to get his job.
Ms Wankhede had slammed the minister and accused him of taking out his "personal vendetta for his son-in-law's arrest" by dragging women into the ongoing tussle between him and the probe agency.
Mr Malik's son-in-law Sameer Khan had been summoned by the NCB after they found evidence of transactions worth Rs 20,000 with an accused in another drugs case. He was arrested in January - over 200 kg of what the agency said were drugs, but Mr Malik claimed was "herbal tobacco" - and was granted bail in September.
Sameer Khan's case was among six cases transferred out of the Narcotics Control Bureau's Mumbai unit on Friday evening and handed to a special investigation team to be led by senior police officer Sanjay Singh. The cases include that of Aryan Khan and others in the drugs-on-cruise case. They were transferred after extortion allegations against the anti-drugs officer.
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