The Esplanade Court on Thursday sent Zaid Vilatra, an alleged drug peddler who was arrested in a case connected to Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, to the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) custody till September 9. Vilatra was arrested after NCB uncovered his linkages with Abbas Lakhani, who has been nabbed in the actor’s death case. In the court today, NCB argued that Zaid was arrested in connection with the actor’s death.
“He has told us names of two persons in the Sushant case. We have recovered 59 grams of cannabis from the accused which is a non-commercial quantity. We have recovered a huge amount of Rs 9.55 lakh, foreign currency of over USD 2,000 and some UAE Dinars. Though this is a non-commercial quantity and is available presently this is a case where the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, section 27 read with 29 is made out so we demand custody up to September 10,” the Public Prosecutor appearing for NCB informed the court.
“We want to interrogate to whom he sold the drugs and for how much. He has given a statement about two persons related to the Sushant case,” he said. Zaid’s lawyer Tarak Sayyad filed an application in court and said that whatever statement Zaid has given to NCB is not true or voluntary.
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“He has not given a voluntary statement and it is false. He said in court that he was not ill-treated because he was pressurised to say so by the NCB. There is no mention of two persons related to Sushant case in the remand application,” he said. According to the NCB, Zaid disclosed that he runs an eatery shop at Bandra, which was not giving any pecuniary gains since lockdown.
“He also disclosed that he has been into drug peddling especially bud, through which he used to earn a substantial amount of money,” it said. The NCB launched an investigation after it received official communication from Enforcement Directorate (ED), in which there were various chats related to drug consumption, procurement, usage and transportation in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput case.
The agency arrested Lakhani and another person named Karn Arora and seized bud (curated marijuana) from their possession. “In a separate incident, on the intervening night August 27-28, based on a specific input, a raid was conducted at Mumbai and two persons namely Abbas Lakhani and Karn Arora were arrested and bud (curated marijuana) was seized from their possession. The detailed network analysis and in follow up investigation, uncovered the linkages of Abbas Lakhani with one Zaid Vilatra,” read a release by the NCB. (ANI)
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