Mumbai: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested Showik Chakraborty and Samuel Miranda on Friday in connection with the drug investigation related to the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, authorities said.
Three federal agencies are investigating various angles surrounding the death of the 34-year-old actor, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are the other two.
Showik Chakraborty, brother of the lead defendant in the Rhea Chakraborty case, and Rajput’s home manager Samuel Miranda have been arrested under various sections of the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), a senior NCB official said. .
Both Showik and Miranda have been named as defendants by the DE and the IWC in the FIRs recorded by them in the Rajput death case.
The sections pressed against them, he said, are 20 (b) that deals with the production, manufacture, possession, sale, purchase and transport of cannabis, 28 (punishment for attempting to commit crimes), 29 (punishment for complicity and conspiracy criminal) and 27 (a) that defines the punishment for financing illicit trafficking and giving refuge to offenders.
They will appear in a local court on Saturday.
The two are required to be questioned in custody to unravel more details about the acquisition, transportation and use of the narcotics. The agency has a “strong case,” the officer said.
The arrests came after more than 10 hours of questioning by the two, who were taken to the agency’s Ballard Estate area office here by NCB detectives after their premises were raided early in the morning.
Accompanied by police officers, the NCB searched Showik’s residence in Santa Cruz (West) and Miranda’s house in the suburbs of Andheri (West) from 6:30 am. Showik lives with his sister Rhea.
The search teams included female officers and were seen wearing masks and gloves and using various vehicles.
NCB Deputy Director (Operations) KPS Malhotra, who heads the agency’s investigation team, was seen leading the search and told the media on the ground that Showik and Miranda’s homes were being searched, which was a “procedural” action.
During the raids, both were served with the subpoena issued under Article 67 (power to request information) of the NDPS Act to join the investigation, officials said.
“They intended to continue (with the search team) due to the presence of the media,” an official said.
He said the agency is seeking to gather additional evidence through this action and some documents have been confiscated by search teams.
He said Rhea (28), the Rajput couple, is expected to be summoned soon.
The NCB, so far, has arrested two suspected drug traffickers operating in the capital city of Maharashtra in this case and has detained one person.
The two detainees are Zaid Vilatra (21) and Abdel Basit Parihar (23), while Kaizan Ibrahim has been questioned since Thursday.
Parihar, a Bandra resident, was arrested after questioning Vilatra.
It is learned that Parihar has “ties” to the narcotics case filed against Rhea and others.
Parihar is linked to a person who allegedly appeared in chats retrieved from Rhea and Showik’s cell phones, authorities said.
The agency is investigating the drugs angle in this case under the criminal sections of the NDPS Act after the Department of Education shared with it a report after the cloning of two Rhea cell phones.
The NCB has said it is investigating “the drug citadel in Mumbai, and especially Bollywood” in this case.
According to officials, the conversations and messages from the mobile phones indicated the acquisition, transport and consumption of drugs, and the ED shared these leads with the NCB and the CBI.
It is understood that the NCB also obtained the phone records of other defendants in the case.
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