Rhea Chakraborty arrested by NCB in drugs case
MUMBAI/ NEW DELHI : Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrests Rhea Chakraborty today under various sections of NDPS Act. She has been taken for a medical test and will be produced before a magistrate via video conferencing by 7.30 pm today.
Rhea, 28, had earlier denied consuming drugs. Her brother Showik Chakraborty was arrested last week in the case. The NCB is likely to file a plea before the court seeking that they need to keep all four in police remand for further questioning. Possibly she will be confronted with others in days to come and will be taken to places for recovery if any. Reportedly, to break cartel her custodial interrogation is needed.
From three consecutive days, actress Rhea Chakraborty has been appearing before the NCB in a possible drugs connection in Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. On 3rd of questioning, Chakraborty reached the NCB office, located at Ballard Estate in south Mumbai, around 10.30 am in a car escorted by a Mumbai Police vehicle. She is still under interrogation.
“We have evidence against Rhea, which is why we arrested her. There is no need for custody. We are satisfied with the three-day questioning we had with her. This is because we cross-examined and questioned those who are already under arrest,” said Mutha Ashok Jain, an official of the Narcotics Control Bureau. He admitted that no drugs had been found on her.
Sushant’s sister Shweta Singh Kirti was among the first ones to react to the news on Twitter. She wrote, “God is with us”. Mumbai Police registered a case of abutment to suicide against two of Sushant Rajput’s sisters and others, based on a complaint by Rhea Chakraborty last night. She had accused them of making “bogus medical prescription” to enable the actor to access anxiety medication that cannot legally be prescribed on WhatsApp.
The case has been transferred to the CBI for further investigation. Today, in a press conference, SSR’s family lawyer Vikas Singh called Rhea’s FIR baseless and said that Bandra Police Station seems to be Rhea’s second home and she runs to it whenever she feels like. Singh also alleged that Mumbai police, in general, is favouring Rhea and said the fresh FIR is a “contempt to Supreme Court”.
In her six-page long complaint, Rhea shared that Sushant passed away five days after he obtained a prescription wherein “he was unlawfully prescribed psychotropic substances at the behest of his sister Priyanka”.
Meanwhile, in a significant order, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) at Esplanade Court has ordered that all remand applications in the cases related to the Sushant matter be conducted only through video-conference.
Rhea Chakraborty was earlier questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) too. Rhea, in interviews given to multiple TV news channels, has said that she has never consumed drugs herself. She had, however, claimed that the late actor used to consume marijuana. It is claimed that Miranda told NCB investigators that he used to procure bud or curated marijuana for the late actor’s household.A total of eight people have been arrested till now by the NCB.
When the probe in the case began, the agency had arrested two men, Abbas Lakhani and Karan Arora, for alleged drug peddling and officials have claimed that through them they reached Zaid Vilatra and Abdel Basit Parihar who are allegedly linked to this drugs case as they were in touch with Miranda.
Rhea Chakraborty, who dated Sushant Singh Rajput in his final months, has been charged with organizing drugs for the Bollywood star. She faces charges that could lead to jail for up to 10 years but there is nothing in the charges about her using drugs.
Wearing black with a “Smash The Patriarchy” message across her tee, Rhea Chakraborty waved at the cameras before getting into a police van to be taken for a medical examination. Many among the waiting reporters had mobbed her when she arrived for questioning for the first time on Sunday.
According to sources, she broke down when confronted with her brother Showik Chakraborty, who was arrested last week.
The Narcotics Control Bureau started its inquiries based on WhatsApp chats retrieved from Rhea Chakraborty’s phone, which revealed alleged conversations around procuring drugs.
Sources said on her second day of questioning yesterday, Rhea Chakraborty told the Narcotics Control Bureau – “Whatever I did, I did for Sushant”. Rhea had told in an interview in August that she had never done drugs but did try to stop Sushant Singh Rajput.
The Narcotics Control Bureau claims to have evidence that Rhea and Showik Chakraborty arranged drugs like marijuana for Sushant with help from the actor’s house manager Samuel Miranda and Dipesh Sawant, another employee. Rhea Chakraborty’s phone chats had revealed her conversations with Miranda.
The bureau claims that Dipesh Sawant collected and delivered 165 grams of marijuana between March and June on orders from Rhea and Showik Chakraborty. Sawant also told investigators he had seen Sushant smoke marijuana since September 2018, when he started working for him.
The drugs case is based on 59 grams of curated marijuana seized from two drug peddlers and their alleged links to Sushant Rajput.
(Mumbai Bureau with agency Inputs ).
