Mumbai: Four people from an event management company were arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Tuesday in connection with the mid-sea rave party case. With the fresh arrests, the total number of those arrested in the case is now 16.
“NCB Mumbai on Tuesday evening arrested four persons - Gopalji Anand, Samir Sehgal, Manav Singhal and Bhaskar Arora, in connection with the cruise raid case. These persons belong to a Delhi-based event management company,” said NCB Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede. Speaking about the role of the event management company officials in the case, an NCB officer said, “As per the provisions of NDPS Act, they are accused of harbouring and allowing the use of the premises for consumption of drugs, since these people had taken the cruise premises on rent for their event.”
On Monday, the NCB had arrested four persons - Shreyas Nair, AQ Shaikh, Manish Rajgaria and Avin Sahu, in connection with the same case.
“Based on the preliminary interrogation of the earlier arrested accused Ishmeet Singh Chadha, a follow-up operation was launched by an NCB team at Goregaon, and one Shreyas Surendra Nair was intercepted along with a small quantity of charas. Based on the preliminary interrogation of the earlier arrested accused Mohak Jaiswal, we conducted a raid at Jogeshwari and intercepted one A Q Shaikh with 2.5 grams of ecstasy and 54.3 grams (commercial quantity) of mephedrone in his possession,” said an NCB officer.
In a follow-up operation, the NCB team had intercepted one Manish Rajgaria who was invited as a guest on the Cordelia and recovered a small quantity of hydroponic weed (multi-strain cannabis). The NCB officials had also arrested one Avin Sahu, sailing on the cruise ship on consumption charges.
A 22-member NCB team, headed by Wankhede, had, conducted a clandestine raid on a cruise in mid-sea near Mumbai on October 2, on receipt of information that drugs were being used in a party at the cruise. NCB officers had arrested Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan along with others identified as Munmun Dhamecha, Arbaaz Merchantt, Vikrant Chhokar, Mohak Jaiswal, Ishmeet Singh Chadha, Gomit Chopra and Nupur Satija in connection with the case. The NCB had seized 13 grams of cocaine, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA, five grams of MD and Rs 1.33 lakh in cash during the raid.
