While the Bombay High Court (HC) on Friday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) not to take any “coercive action” till May 22 against former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) zonal director Sameer Wankhede in the Cordelia cruise ‘drug bust’ case, media reports claimed the plea filed by the officer in the HC included parts of his purported conversation on WhatsApp with actor Shah Rukh Khan, in which the latter is allegedly “pleading for relief for his son, Aryan”.
The veracity of these chats could not be independently verified by News18.
According to media reports, in the chats dating from October 3, 2021 to October 15, 2021, Wankhede has allegedly claimed that Khan “begged as a father” for his “son to be sent home” as his “spirit would be destroyed”. The officer reportedly responded that he “wanted to look forward toward the kids in a reformatory approach”.
Wankhede claimed that these alleged chats prove that the extortion claims are false.
Wankhede, along with his officers VV Singh and Ashish Ranjan and two more civilians, who acted as punchas, has been accused of demanding Rs 25 crore bribe from Khan for not implicating Aryan in the case. The CBI claimed the deal was later settled for Rs 18 crore, and Rs 50 lakh was taken as bribe. The officer has moved the HC seeking the quashing of the first information report (FIR) filed by the CBI. The FIR is based on the report of the Special Enquiry Team (SET).
The CBI had summoned Wankhede for questioning in Mumbai on Thursday in connection with the case, but he did not appear before the agency. Wankhede, who is now an officer with the Indian Revenue Services (IRS), has maintained that he is “honest” and “this is a personal attack” on him.
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