Mumbai: A Mumbai court on Sunday remanded former Dharma Productions’ executive Kshitij R. Prasad to the Narcotics Control Bureau’s custody till October 3, officials said here.
Prasad has been accused of procuring narcotics from a businessman, is part of a ‘conspiracy’ for drugs procurement, and is directly or indirectly connected with several peddlers or suppliers who have been arrested in the ongoing investigations so far.
However, he has denied all the charges against him and claimed that he was being framed in the case.
A former employee of Dharma Productions, Prasad was nabbed on Saturday evening by the NCB after his sustained interrogation subsequent to his name cropping up during the probe of the other accused.
He was produced before a Magistrate Court by the NCB seeking his remand for 9 days, but the court granted six days.
In a 7-page remand application, the NCB Joint Intelligence Officer Murari Lal said that Sanket Patel, a peddler who had been arrested earlier, had supplied Ganja to Prasad on the orders of another co-accused Karamjeet Singh Anand.
Currently on bail, Patel said that he had delivered the Ganja to Prasad outside his home in Adani Building, Andheri west, 12 times between May-July 2020.
For each consignment of 50gm, Prasad paid him Rs 3,500 — coming to a total of 600gm Ganja worth Rs 42,000 in that period.
Similarly, based on a statement by another accused Ankush Anreja the NCB searched Prasad’s house on September 25, though initially this was denied by the investigating agency on last Friday.
The NCB sleuths recovered a roll joint believed to be the remnants of a smoked Ganja roll, and seized certain documents and gadgets, said the agency in the remand plea.
After his interrogation, wherein Prasad reportedly admitted that he procured Hashish from Anreja and Karamjeet via Patel, Prasad was arrested.
The NCB said that the accused Prasad is indirectly connected with Anuj Keshwani — one of the earliest arrests made by the NCB — from whom commercial quantities of narcotics was seized.
With Prasad’s arrest, the total netted by the NCB in the drugs case has touched 20 till Sunday.
They include: Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik Chakraborty, Abbas Lakhani, Karan Arora, Zaid Vilatra, Abdul Basit Parihar, Samuel Miranda, Dipesh Sawant, Kaizan Ebrahim, Anuj Keswani, Ankush Arneja, Karamjeet Singh Anand, Sanket Patel, Sandeep Gupta, Aftab Ansari, Dwyane Fernandes, Suryadeep Malhotra, Chris Costa, Rahil Vishram and lastly Kshitij Prasad.
While some are in NCB custody, others are in judicial custody and the rest have been enlarged on bail by various courts.
(IANS)
Ms Kalinga