Sameer Wankhede, the zonal director of Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) Mumbai unit, has been removed from the investigation into the Mumbai drugs-on-cruise case in which 20 people including Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan have been arrested so far. Five other cases, including the one related to Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan, have been transferred from the NCB’s Mumbai zone to the operations unit in Delhi. 

The action has been taken on “administrative grounds,” and in wake of the cases having “wider and inter-state ramifications,” NCB Deputy Director General (north-west region) Mutha Ashok Jain told news agency PTI.

He said the order for transfer of cases has been issued by NCB Director General (DG) S N Pradhan.

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All the six cases will now be supervised by NCB officer Sanjay Singh. Wankhede will continue to serve as Mumbai zonal director of NCB. A team from Delhi NCB operations will camp in Mumbai to take the probe in these cases forward, officials said.

The NCB had initiated an internal probe headed by Deputy Director-General Gyaneshwar Singh against Wankhede following allegations of extortion and corruption against him by Prabhakar Sail, who the NCB previously claimed was an “independent witness” in the case. 

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Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik, who levelled similar allegations against Wankede, tweeted, “This is just the beginning. A lot more has to be done to clean this system and we will do it.” Wankhede rubbished the claim, adding there will now be coordination between Mumbai and Delhi NCB teams in these cases. “It was my writ petition in court that the matter be probed by a central agency. So Aryan case & Sameer Khan case are being probed by Delhi NCB’s SIT. It’s a coordination between NCB teams of Delhi & Mumbai,”Wankhede told ANI.

The NCB on October 2 detained Aryan and eight others in what it claimed to be a drug bust on a Goa-bound cruise ship off the Mumbai coast. Aryan was charged with several offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), 1985. 

The Bombay High Court granted Aryan bail on October 30 after he had spent 22 days in Mumbai’s Arthur Road Prison.

Aryan on Friday mark his presence before the NCB as part of the conditions set by the court for his bail.