The Narcotics Control Bureau’s biggest, and perhaps their strongest, charge against 23-year-old Aryan Khan is that his WhatsApp chats were ‘suspicious’ and point towards a ‘larger international drugs-related conspiracy’. Aryan, the son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, was a regular consumer of drugs, the NCB told a special NDPS court in Mumbai on Thursday while opposing his bail plea, presenting a huge dilemma for SRK’s lawyers, who have consistently urged the prosecution to not take these chats on face value. The chats between Aryan and his friends, all peak Gen Z, contain words that when taken out of context could mean somehting completely different and may not be easily decodable by other generations, they argued.
Aryan, who was arrested by the NCB on October 3 from the Cordelia cruise ship, is currently lodged in Arthur Road jail and will remain there for at least six more days as the court, after hearing arguments, posted the matter for orders on October 20.
During the bail hearing on Friday, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Anil Singh, appearing for the NCB, claimed that there was evidence to show that Aryan Khan was a regular consumer of drugs for the last few years.
He also reiterated the charge of conspiracy against Aryan, based on his WhatsApp chats. Since his arrest, the NCB has maintained that though nothing was recovered from him personally, Aryan’s WhatsApp chats revealed his links with drug peddlers.
The ASG further contended that drugs were seized from Arbaaz Merchant, another arrested accused in the case, at the docks, and they were meant for consumption by both Aryan and him.
However, Senior Advocate Amit Desai, representing Aryan, contended that the allegation of links to international racket against Aryan is “inherently absurd and false”. On Aryan’s WhatsApp chats, Desai said today’s youth have different ways of expressing themselves which might be “torture” for the older generation.
The language could seem like something different than what ought to be (expected) in a court of law and might lead to suspicion, Desai said. “These are private moments which are being investigated. You can go ahead and investigate…But it has nothing to do with illicit behaviour, illicit drug trafficking,” he added.
Aryan Khan had lived abroad for some time, and a lot of things are “legitimate” in other countries, the lawyer added.
Earlier, Aryan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha, who were among those arrested by the NCB on October 3, had been denied bail by a magistrate’s court which said it can not hear the pleas in a case triable by a special NDPS court.
While Aryan and Merchant are lodged at Arthur Road jail, Dhamecha is at Byculla women’s prison in the city. Based on a tip-off that a rave party was scheduled on the ship off the Mumbai coast, an NCB team, led by its zonal director Sameer Wankhede, raided the Goa-bound Cordelia cruise on October 2 evening and allegedly seized drugs.
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