Former Narcotics Control Bureau officer Sameer Wankhede failed to appear before the Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday in connection with a case of alleged demand of bribe of ₹25 crore from actor Shah Rukh Khan.
It is alleged that Mr. Wankhede and others demanded the bribe to not implicate his son Aryan Khan in the 2021 Cordelia cruise ship drug bust case. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) did not name Aryan Khan in its chargesheet in the case because of lack of evidence against him.
Mr. Wankhede had offered to appear before the CBI after an FIR was registered against him and four others on the basis of an NCB inquiry referred to it by the Home Ministry, sources said. They said Mr. Wankhede did not appear for questioning on Thursday and the CBI would decide on the future course of action.
The officials said a special enquiry team (SET) of the NCB had red-flagged several lapses and irregularities in the operation on the cruise ship conducted under the “monitoring” of Mr. Wankhede.
The NCB had alleged that K.P. Gosavi and his aide Prabhakar Sail, now deceased, were included as independent witnesses in the cruise ship raid on October 2, 2021, on the directions of Mr. Wankhede.
Mr. Gosavi, his aide Sanvile D’Souza and others had entered into the conspiracy to “extort ₹25 crore” from Aryan’s family, the FIR in the case stated.
In order to let him walk free, Mr. Gosavi and Mr. D’Souza negotiated the amount bringing it down to ₹18 crore and even collected a token of ₹50 lakh and returned a part of the amount later, it said.
