Aryan Khan drug case: Four more accused remanded, total of 16 persons now in NCB custody

A Mumbai court on Wednesday remanded four more persons arrested in relation to the cruise ship drug case to Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) custody till October 14..Thus a total of 16 persons have now been remanded to NCB custody including Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan The four accused, the latest to be remanded are Gopal Anand, Samir Saigal, Manav Singhal and Bhaskar Arora.They were allegedly organizers of the event/ party on the cruise..Earlier, Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant, Munmun Dhamecha, Nupur Sarika, Ismeet Singh, Mohak Jaswal, Vikrant Chhoker, Gomit Chopra, Abdul Kadir, Shreyas Nair, Manish Rajgariya and Avin Sahu were remanded to NCB custody.On Monday, October 4, Aryan Khan and seven others were remanded to NCB custody till October 7, 2021. Later on Tuesday, four additional accused were remanded to NCB custody till October 11, 2021. All sixteen accused were arrested by NCB after a raid was conducted on Cordelia Cruises' Empress ship based on specific information of a supposed rave party..Special Public Prosecutor Advait Sethna appearing for the NCB submitted before the Court on Wednesday that the four accused were part of the organising team of the party which was to be conducted on the cruise. .He informed the Court that “after much deliberation” against these four accused, NCB had invoked Section 25 (punishment for allowing premises) and 27A (punishment for financing illicit traffic and harbouring offenders) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act..Elaborating on this submission, Sethna stated in the present case, NCB had arrested some persons before boarding the ship and some accused were arrested after the boarding onto the ship. After the ship was brought back to the shore, the another raid was conducted and seizures were made..That the present accused were intercepted before the boarding onto the cruise, and despite express objection, the ship sailed, Sethna argued, lead to the harbouring of the offenders on the ship..Advocates Harsh Gangurde briefed by Sajal Yadav opposed the remand stating that their detention was illegal. He stated that the accused had been detained on October 4, 2021 at 7 am, however the formal arrest was on October 5 at 5.30 pm, and the accused were produced in Court on October 6.He stated that the moment the accused was apprehended and movement was restricted, the accused was completely under the police case;He further stated that the detention was in clear violation of the fundamental rights of the accused..After hearing the submissions and based on the alleged contraband seized, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate RM Nerlikar held that investigation was required and granted custody to NCB till October 14."Going through the submissions of the accused, contents of the remand report, it appears that all accused were arrested on October 5 and produced in Court on October 6, here the accused submissions are contrary to the arrest memo and deserve to be rejected." the order states. The Court opined based on the submissions and nature of allegations that "NCB custody was required for interrogation and investigation as to whether the accused is innocent or not" and remanded the accused to NCB custody. .During the operation, NCB claimed to have recovered 13 grams of Cocaine, 5 grams of Mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA ecstasy and ₹1.33 lakhs in cash.The accused have been booked for offences under Sections 8(c), 20(b), 27, 28, 29 and 35 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.