Court sends Aryan Khan, 2 others to NCB custody till 7 October

A Mumbai court today granted the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) custody of Aryan Khan and two others till 7 October.

The trio was produced before the court by the NCB today to seek extension of their custody. They had been arrested late on 2 October, following which a holiday court had granted the agency a day's custody.

According to the legal news website BarandBench.com, additional chief metropolitan magistrate RM Nerlikar said in his order, "The co-accused possessed intermediate contraband. The accused accompanied them. Investigation is of prime importance. It will be essential for prosecution and accused to prove he is innocent."

Additional solicitor general Anil Singh, who argued for the prosecution, pleaded for NCB custody of the individuals involved till 11 October.

According to the live coverage of the proceedings, the ASG noted, "What is mentioned in the messages may not be relevant for the remand hearing, but I will still request the court to read. There are chats with [several] persons and those include chats with unknown persons. There are chats on bulk purchase. That has to be investigated."

Advocate Satish Maneshinde, representing Aryan Khan, argued that he had cooperated with the investigation for 48 hours despite not being found in possession of any contraband substances.

Maneshinde said, "Any prayer for further custody may be rejected. Whatever they had to interrogate with me, they have. I have cooperated, and they also were nice to me. I showed my good conduct. Did not delete anything."

However, Anil Singh insisted that the investigation is in a 'preliminary stage' and so their custody was warranted. The final order from the court noted that "the incriminating material coupled with fresh arrests need to be corroborated. The other accused were arrested and new facts need to be verified."

The NCB has claimed to have recovered 13 grams of cocaine, 5gm of mephedrone, 21gm of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (Ecstasy), and Rs1.33 lakh in cash.

Aryan Khan and eight others were arrested by the NCB after a raid on a cruise ship on 2 October. Besides Aryan, Munmun Dhamecha and Arbaaz Merchant were also sent to NCB custody till 7 October. The remaining arrested people will be presented in court tomorrow.