NCB vigilance team grills witness Prabhakar Sail for over 11 hours

PTI, Nov 10, 2021, 8:26 AM IST

A vigilance team of the Narcotics Control Bureau on Tuesday questioned witness Prabhakar Sail for more than 11 hours in connection with an alleged attempt to extort money in the drugs case involving Aryan Khan, actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son.

Sail had appeared before the vigilance team on Monday too.

According to an NCB official, Sail and his lawyer Tushar Khandare appeared before the vigilance team at the Central Reserve Police Force’s (CRPF) Mess in suburban Bandra around 11.55 am, and left at 11.25 pm.

On Monday Sail had been questioned for more than 10 hours. The agency has also summoned Sail to appear before the NCB’s “operational team” at its zonal office in south Mumbai on Thursday, said the official.

The vigilance team, headed by the NCB’s Deputy Director General (northern region) Gyaneshwar Singh, arrived here from Delhi on Monday morning.

Sail, who claims to be the bodyguard of NCB witness KP Gosavi, last month alleged in an affidavit that he had heard Gosavi discussing a Rs 25 crore pay-off deal after Aryan Khan was arrested by the NCB during a `drug bust’ on a cruise ship.

Sail claimed that Gosavi had said Rs 8 crore of the deal money was to be given to NCB’s Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede. Following Sail’s allegations, the NCB started the vigilance inquiry. Wankhede had denied the allegations against him.

Last month, the team led by Singh came to Mumbai to probe the allegations of extortion but failed to record Sail’s statement. It, however, recorded statements of eight others, including Wankhede.