Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son to remain in jail till Oct 20
Online desk: Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan will remain in jail till at least October 20 in connection with a cruise ship drugs bust case.
Aryan and seven others were apprehended by India’s top drug enforcement agency, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), 10 days ago.
On October 3, NCB officials dressed in plain clothes raided a luxury cruise ship in Mumbai city. At the time, the NCB said it recovered 13gm of cocaine, 21gm of charas (cannabis), 22 pills of MDMA and 5gm of mephedrone and Rs 130,000 in cash during the raid.
The hearing for Aryan’s bail plea — the third since his arrest — began on Wednesday and continued through Thursday. Sessions court judge VV Patil reserved his order on the 23-year-old’s plea, leaving him with no legal options for recourse till an order is passed next week.
Representing the NCB, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh referred to Aryan’s WhatsApp chats and alleged that he has been consuming drugs regularly for three years. The NCB has asked that Aryan remain in custody while they probe his alleged role in international drug trafficking.
The defence said that there was absolutely no way Aryan had ties to any foreign drug operations. His advocate Amit Desai added that the narcotics bureau did not provide any information about how its investigation might be impacted if Aryan was granted bail.
Desai added that there were no messages or conversations on his client’s mobile phone about the cruise ship rave party. Further, he pointed out that no drugs were found on Aryan himself.
Several political leaders, journalists and Bollywood actors have come out in support of the Khans.
Shortly after the bail hearing, #AryanKhanBail began trending on Twitter as many condemned the decision to keep Aryan in jail.
Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nandy tweeted: “Bail hearings make clear that his blood tests were clean, only allegations based on straws like membership of a WhatsApp group. Either NCB made a mistake, is covering up, or this is a vendetta.”
