The Narcotics Control Bureau on Tuesday arrested drug peddler Zaid Vilatra in connection with late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s case.
The 20-year-old was apprehended by NCB and his CDR analysis revealed that he was in touch with Basit Parihar and Suryadeep Malhotra, who are connected to Rhea Chakraborty’s brother Showik.
According to a report by India Today, Showik’s chats with the two revealed drugs consumption and procurement.
As the reports of Zaid’s involvement surfaced in the media, a Hindi news channel reporter set up a camera outside the Vilatra residence and knocked on the door asking for his father to comment on the arrest.
However, senior Vilatra abused and threatened the reporter on live TV for the invasion of privacy.
Earlier in March, Showik shared Zaid’s contact info with Sushant’s manager Samuel Miranda and asked him to pay him (Zaid) Rs 10,000 for 5g of drugs. After this, Miranda contacted Vilatra thrice.
Earlier, Goa-based hotelier Gaurav Arya was grilled by the Enforcement Directorate after Rhea’s chats showed her asking him for MDMA.
Arya, however maintained that he never met Sushant nor did he supply any drugs.
The Narcotics Control Bureau probing the drug angle has hinted at not collecting blood and nail samples of Rhea and is instead identifying peddlers, who provided drugs to them on regular intervals.
This comes even as Rhea went for a series of interviews to TV channels, just hours ahead of her questioning by the CBI, and claimed those drug deliveries mentioned in three different chat transcripts between her and others were meant for Sushant alone.
In one of the interviews, Rhea expressed her desire to submit her blood sample for drug presence, as was earlier also mentioned by her lawyer.
However, a top NCB source told IANS: "This was a clever move as fresh samples can never detect presence of drugs in the blood after more than a week. The blood sample test is only effective if it is conducted within a week."
The source said: "It's already been more than two months. So, the agency will get nothing from the blood samples."
An NCB source said: "Our prime focus is to identify the drug peddlers, suppliers and users, who provided those drugs to these people named in the case."
The source said that through peddlers, the agency will reach to the kingpin of drug suppliers.
The NCB sources related to the probe said that the agency has prepared the list of 20 suspects over supply of drugs in the case including Suved Lohia, Kwan Entertainment partner Jaya Saha, ex-Big Boss contestant Ejaz Khan, Farookh Batata, and Bakul Chandani, among others.
With IANS inputs
