New Delhi: Kiran Gosavi, the Narcotics Control Bureau’s controversial “independent witness” in the so-called ‘cruise drugs party’ case, has been detained in Pune three days after he claimed he would surrender to the police in Lucknow.
According to NDTV, after a lookout notice was issued against Gosavi, he claimed he wanted to surrender in Uttar Pradesh as he felt “threatened” in Maharashtra.
Gosavi, said to be a “private investigator” whose photos and videos with actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan went viral on social media after the NCB’s raid on the cruise ship off the Mumbai coast on October 2, had been absconding.
Recently, another witness in the drugs case, Prabhakar Sail, told media persons that he had overheard Gosavi telling one Sam D’Souza over the phone, after Aryan Khan was brought to the NCB office following the October 2 raid on the cruise ship, about a demand of Rs 25 crore and “to settle at Rs 18 crore as they have to give Rs eight crore to Sameer Wankhede”.
On Monday, Gosavi had refuted the extortion claims made by Sail, and said he will surrender before Lucknow police.
Pune Commissioner of Police Amitabh Gupta on Thursday said they have “detained” Gosavi in connection with the 2018 cheating case. The official denied that Gosavi had surrendered before the police.
Gosavi was apparently present during the cruise ship raid and was seen at the NCB office when Aryan Khan was taken there. His selfies and videos with Aryan Khan have appeared on social media.
Gosavi has been called an “independent witness” by the NCB, which is probing the drugs case in which nearly 20 people were arrested.
The Pune police had earlier arrested Gosavi’s assistant Sherbano Kureshi in connection with the cheating case, filed by one Chinmay Deshmukh who had alleged that Gosavi cheated him of Rs 3.09 lakh under the pretext of providing him a job in Malaysia in the hotel industry. Kureshi had received the money in her account.
The case was registered at Faraskhana police station here.
As The Wire has reported, the NCB’s probe into the drugs case has been riddled with inconsistencies and has raised several questions.
Gosavi, according to the Indian Express, was also named as an accused in three more cases of cheating, including one at the Andheri police station in Mumbai in 2007 and two at Kapurbawdi police station in Thane in 2015 and 2016.