That Maharashtra Minorities Minister Nawab Malik is furious is an understatement. “He is in big trouble and I will not sit in peace until he is ousted from office. This is going to be a long show,” said Malik, referring to his very public spat with Narcotics Control Bureau’s Mumbai zone director Sameer Wankhede.
Within days of arresting actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan and several others during a drug raid on the Goa-bound Cordelia cruise ship, Wankhede went from being the lead investigating officer to the one being investigated. He is now at the centre of three ongoing probes—one, the investigation by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes into allegations of forgery over his caste certificate; two, the NCB’s vigilance probe to verify the ₹25 crore extortion demand to let off Aryan Khan; and three, the Mumbai police probe into four separate allegations of bribery against him.
Once the blue-eyed boy of the NCB—it had recognised him as one of its best officers just a few months ago—Wankhede finds himself in a pickle, his credibility and credentials questioned. And at the heart of this mess lies a barrage of tweets, bytes and close to a dozen news conferences by Malik, who has been levelling charges against Wankhede and targeting him personally and professionally on an almost daily basis.
The latest one accuses him of “kidnapping Aryan Khan for ransom in tandem with BJP leader and mastermind Mohit Kamboj”. On November 5, Wankhede was taken off the Cordelia case and five other high-profile cases, which were transferred to the NCB’s special investigation team (SIT).
This story is from the November 21, 2021 edition of THE WEEK.
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This story is from the November 21, 2021 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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