6 men arrested for drug peddling linked to Rhea, Showik: NCB

The NCB has said that the six men it arrested for drug peddling are directly or indirectly linked to Rhea Chakraborty, Showik Chakraborty and Sushant Singh Rajput.

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Monday said that the six accused arrested by the bureau on Sunday are part of a drug syndicate and are linked directly or indirectly to Rhea Chakraborty, Showik Chakraborty and Sushant Singh Rajput.

The six accused - Karamjeet Singh, Dwayne Fernandes, Sanket Patel, Ankush Arneja, Sandeep Gupta and Aftab Fateh Ansari - were arrested by the NCB after it made several raids in different parts of Mumbai and Goa over the weekend. They were produced before the metropolitan magistrate court via video conferencing on Monday for remand.

In its remand application, the NCB said that six have been arrested in the case related to alleged procurement, facilitation and harbouring of narcotics offenders against Rhea Chakraborty, Showik Chakraborty and others.

Explaining their link to Rhea, her brother and Sushant Rajput, the NCB officials said that Ankush Arneja bought Hashish and MDMA from Anuj Keshwani, who was peddling drugs in western suburbs of Mumbai through other peddlers. The NCB had recovered a large amount of contraband from Keshwani during a raid on his property.

The drug peddler Keshwani was in direct contact with Kaizan Ibrahim, another arrested peddler who is presently out on bail in the case. Ibrahim had delivered narcotics to Dipesh Sawant, who - on instructions of Showik Chakraborty - was in direct contact with Rhea Chakraborty and late Sushant Singh Rajput.

The NCB officials also revealed that Anuj Arneja was also in touch with another arrested accused Karamjeet Singh and would also procure and sell the drugs further. Karamjeet was also in touch with Showik directly, and WhatsApp chat between Karamjeet and Showik reveal discussion regarding the procurement of drugs.

Karamjeet was directly in touch with Samuel Miranda, Showik, Rhea and Sushant Singh Rajput, reads the remand copy.

Meanwhile, the NCB officials on Monday raided two premises in Mumbai, including one owned by Showik Chakraborty's school friend Suryadeep Mehrotra. The NCB officials revealed that Mehrotra was a friend of Showik, Rhea and Late Sushant Singh Rajput and would often visit Sushant's residence at Capri Heights in Bandra and then Mount Blanc in Bandra. It is suspected that Mehrotra arranged narcotics for the trio and was interrogated for the same by the NCB officials.

Karamjeet, Arenja, Dwayne Fernandes, Sandeep Gupta, Sanket Patel and Aftab Ansari were produced in the metropolitan magistrate court via video conferencing on Monday. Karamjeet, Arenja and Fernandes were remanded to the NCB custody till September 16 while Gupta, Patel and Ansari were sent to judicial custody.