Updated: October 4, 2020 6:57:21 am
A former Dharmatic Entertainment executive producer told a court on Saturday that he was forced by officials from the Office of Narcotics Control to falsely implicate actors Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Dino Morea.
A EX Executive Producer for Dharmatic Entertainment, a sister company of Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions that was arrested last week, told a court on Saturday that it was forced by officials from the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to falsely implicate actors Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Dino. Morea.
Kshitij Prasad had said before NCB had forced him to implicate Johar. The agency had denied it, stating that the investigation was being conducted in a “professional” manner.
“I have been repeatedly harassed and coerced into falsely implicating Dino Morea, Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor in the present proceedings despite the fact that I have repeatedly stated that I do not know those persons and that I am not aware of such accusations,” Prasad said in an application before the court on Saturday. He said that he was again forced to sign false statements prepared by OCN officials and that he was retracting them, including the self-incriminating parts.
Prasad was in the custody of NCB from September 27 to October 3. On Saturday, the court sent him to jail until October 6.
The NCB responded to Prasad’s allegations by stating that he was “totally uncooperative, inflexible, and arrogant” and had refused to sign a statement that he himself had given. “He was trying to bargain a lot to get his signature on the statement instead of removing Section 27A of the NDPS Act,” the NCB filed with the court. The section is a non-bond offense related to the financing of illicit trafficking. Special prosecutor Atul Sarpande also presented the statements recorded by the NCB to the court and said they did not contain any of the names mentioned by Prasad.
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In his written statement presented through attorney Satish Maneshinde, Prasad said: “I say that the whistleblower (NCB) is harassing and mentally, emotionally and psychologically abusing me to make false statements.” He said he was surrounded by NCB officials who dictated statements to him and forced him to sign them under duress, threat and duress, stating that they would implicate his wife and other family members if he did not.
“Upon reading the statement, the defendant also realized that many parts of the statement were unilaterally included by the officers without their consent (and) are completely false,” Maneshinde said.
The OCN claims that Prasad was part of a conspiracy to purchase and distribute drugs and had received ganja from Ankush Arneja, a co-defendant. According to the NCB, Arneja was related to the defendant Anuj Keshwani, from whom commercial quantities of drugs were allegedly seized.
The NCB has also claimed links between Prasad and other alleged street vendors accused of connections to the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s cook, Dipesh Sawant, and actor Rhea Chakraborty and his brother Showik.
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The NCB previously told The Indian Express that Prasad had initially said that it did not supply narcotics to anyone, but instead used them for personal consumption after purchasing them from suspected drug dealers arrested in the case. An official said that during questioning, Prasad had denied using marijuana, but that they had established that he had been in contact with suspected drug traffickers more than 20 times. That’s why the financing and conspiracy charge was added, the official said.
However, the official said they had not yet established who he allegedly supplied Prasad or how much he made, but claimed that his prima facie share of someone’s financing “was enough to charge him.”
Twenty arrests have so far been made in the case, stemming from the Rajput death investigation, over an alleged Bollywood drug nexus. Among those arrested are Chakraborty and Showik, and the Bombay High Court previously reserved an order on their bail requests.
While Chakraborty is also facing a case in WhatsApp chats allegedly dealing with drugs and an investigation into money laundering charges, no arrests have been made on those. Chakraborty is also being investigated by the CBI for complicity in a suicide case recorded by the Rajput family.
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