NCB grills Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan, Shraddha Kapoor in drugs case

Three Bollywood actors - Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan -- were grilled by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday.

The federal anti-narcotics organisation is investigating two cases - the drug angle in the Sushant Singh Rajput case and the larger Bollywood-drug cartel nexus.

Deepika, who arrived at the NCB SIT office on Saturday morning, was grilled as part of the larger case involving the use of narcotics by people in the Hindi film industry. The questioning of Shraddha and Sara assumed significance as they have acted in films alongside Sushant.

All of them were grilled for nearly six hours. It is not yet known whether they have been summoned again.

Also read — Deepika Padukone was admin of drug chats group on WhatsApp: Report

Sara and Sushant had acted in 'Kedarnath', a romantic drama film written, directed and co-produced by Abhishek Kapoor. After the success of the film, which was released in 2018, a team of the film went to Bangkok to celebrate. Sara and Sushant are said to have travelled together. Sara has also visited Sushant’s Pavna bungalow in Pune for parties.

Shraddha and Sushant had featured in 'Chhichhore', a coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Nitesh Tiwari, which was released in 2019.

The trio was grilled in Evelyn House, the guesthouse of the Mumbai Port Trust near the Taj Mahal Palace, which is the camp office of the NCB’s Special Investigation Team (SIT).

On Friday, Deepika's business manager Karishma Prakash was questioned by NCB's Special Investigation Team (NCB). She was also questioned for the second day.

Karishma Prakash's WhatsApp chats included conversations about drugs with one 'D' and the central agency wanted to find out who this person was, the NCB sources had said earlier.

Meanwhile, at NCB’s zonal office at Ballard Estate, production executive and director Kshitij Ravi Prasad was questioned. Prasad was later arrested and would be produced in court on September 27, said Ashok Mutha Jain, Dy DG, NCB.

However, filmmaker Karan Johar clarified that Kshitij has nothing to do with him or his company Dharma Productions.

Also read: NCB reaches doorstep of Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor, and other Bollywood players

"I would like to further state that several media/news channels have been airing news reports that Kshitij Prasad and Anubhav Chopra are my ‘aides’/’close aides’. I would like to place on record that I don’t know these individuals personally and neither of these two individuals are ‘aides’ or ‘close aides’," his statement read.

"Kshitij Ravi Prasad joined Dharmatic Entertainment (sister concern of Dharma Productions) in November 2019 as one of the executive producers on contract basis for a project which eventually did not materialise," he added.