Lashing out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Centre’s alleged misuse of central agencies, the Shiv Sena on Monday lauded the Bombay High Court's bail order of the court not noticing any positive evidence against Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan, in the Mumbai cruise drug bust case of October 2.
An editorial in the Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana called the court’s order a slap on the Centre’s face, while accusing the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of spinning its own tale to arrest the star kid along with eight others.
“The Bombay HC has ruled out any ‘drug conspiracy’ in the case while stating that no drugs were found on Aryan Khan's person…NCB officers [who had conducted the raid] had attempted to extort bribes in exchange for letting the youngsters go,” said the Sena editorial.
Aryan Khan was arrested by the NCB allegedly during a search on a cruise ship last month in Mumbai. He was in jail for nearly a month before the court granted him bail.
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In its detailed order, the high court had said that prima facie no positive evidence was found against the accused to show that they had conspired to commit an offence.
“If what the High Court says is true, then all such officers attempting to extort money while framing youngsters must be arrested,” said the editorial.
It further praised senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik for making public all ‘evidence’ of alleged wrongdoing by the NCB while slamming the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Anil Deshmukh case.
It said that the manner in which agencies had camped themselves only in Maharashtra smacked of some kind of conspiracy.
“The BJP has gone completely silent ever since Nawab Malik started with his expose of the NCB…even NCP chief Sharad Pawar has warned that each day that [ex-Home Minister] Anil Deshmukh remains in jail, the BJP will have to pay for it,” it said.
