In a stunning development, high-profile NCP leader Nawab Malik on Thursday dropped a bombshell saying that top NCB official Sameer Wankhede would be arrested and dismissed from service in a year’s time.
Malik is a close aide of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and the minority affairs minister in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.
It may be recalled, Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan was arrested by the NCB in a drugs case, however, he has been given bail by a special NDPS court - and since then the senior politician has launched an expose against Wankhede, who is posted as NCB’s Mumbai zonal director.
“I am going to expose the officer….he will be arrested in six months and in a year’s time he will be out of a job in one year,” claimed Malik, the chief spokesperson of NCP.
"A special officer (Sameer Wankhede) was brought in to the NCB after Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide. The CBI is investigating the case but the mystery over whether it is a suicide or murder remains unresolved. But the NCB is now after the film industry,” he said, adding that Rhea Chakraborty - the live-in partner of the actor was booked in a fake case
"Attempts were made to implicate certain people in false cases. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the entire film industry was in Maldives. What was the officer and his family doing in Maldives and Dubai? This has to be clarified by Sameer Wankhede," the NCP spokesperson said.
Dozens of film personalities were being paraded before the NCB office, he said.
"We are very clear. All this ‘vasuli’ (extortion) took place in Maldives and Dubai and I will release those photos," Malik said, and also posted some photos on his Twitter account.
“Along with some BJP people, Wankhede is threatening the film industry people… I am repeating again, he keeps filing false cases and arresting people based on WhatsApp chats and without any evidence… I am going to reveal more on this,” warned Malik.
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He released photos of Wankhede’s sister Jasmeen Wankhede, ostensibly shot in the Maldives with captions and tagging her friends, including Fletcher Patel who had called her “The Lady Don’.
Wankhede, however, refused to comment. “I fail to understand why the attacks on me, my sister, my retired father, my deceased mother when I am merely doing my duty… The cases are sub-judice. I will give a fitting reply later.”
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