Sushant Rajput's Cook Arrested As Probe Over 59 Grams Of Marijuana Widens

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput's cook Dipesh Sawant was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau or NCB on Saturday in the probe into allegations of drug abuse surrounding the movie star's death in June. Earlier believed to be a witness in the case, Mr Sawant was arrested after being questioned since the morning. With this, the number of people arrested in this case has risen to eight.

On Friday, the anti-narcotics agency had arrested Showik Chakraborty, the brother of Sushant Singh's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, and Samuel Miranda, the actor's house manager, under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

No drugs have been found on 24-year-old Showik Chakraborty yet and the NCB's case so far has hinged on the discovery of 59 grams of curated marijuana from two men identified as Abbas Lakhani and Karan Arora and the links they allegedly had with those close to Sushant Singh.

In its application seeking Mr Chakraborty custody, the NCB said he had "given so many names with whom he was dealing in drugs" and will now be confronted with his sister Rhea Chakraborty, who is likely to be summoned for questioning on Sunday.

Various angles surrounding the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, are being probed by three federal agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the NCB.

Under intense media glare for nearly three months that spiked after Sushant Singh's father accused Rhea Chakraborty of driving him to suicide, the only arrests in the case so far have come from the angle of drugs possession.

The NCB, which usually probes drug cases involving several kilos of contraband, admitted that the arrests over such small amounts of marijuana is uncommon.

"Narcotics Control Bureau is the uppermost agency for enforcement of anti-drug laws. We look at international connections and intra-state connections. Normally this is not part of our mandate but now that we are getting information we cannot shirk our responsibility," Mutha Ashok Jain, the Deputy Director General of NCB, said.