MUMBAI: The cruise drugs bust triggered a controversy after it emerged that Kiran Gosavi, one of the panch witnesses, had a criminal background.
Actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant and others were arrested on October 3, following an October 2 raid by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) team, led by then zonal director Sameer Wankhede, at an international terminal on a Goa-bound cruise. When they were brought to NCB’s Ballard Pier office, Gosavi moved around holding Aryan’s hand as if he was an NCB officer. A day later after Gosavi’s picture with Aryan at the NCB office went viral and questions were raised as he was a politically connected person, the NCB clarified that he was a panch (witness).
Panchas are supposed to be ‘independent’ witnesses. It is sometimes difficult to get such persons during an ongoing raid and often the investigating agencies end up engaging panchas with criminal background.
Gosavi ran a company, KPG Dreamz Solutions, which promised jobs abroad to aspirants from various fields. Gosavi, who was absconding after Pune police issued a lookout circular against him in a 2018 cheating case, claimed that his life was under threat in Maharashtra. He was soon arrested by Pune police.
Later, Kelwe police in Palghar district arrested Gosavi for cheating two youths of Rs 1.7 lakh under pretext availing jobs to them in Malaysia.
Serious questions were raised after Prabhakar Sail, another panch witness and Gosavi’s bodyguard, submitted an affidavit stating that Gosavi, Shah Rukh’s manager Pooja Dadlani, and businessman Sam D’Souza met in the wee hours of October 3 at Lower Parel and discussed how to save Aryan from arrest. Sail then dropped Gosavi to his Vashi residence. Gosavi later asked Sail to pick up money from outside a hotel in Tardeo. A person arrived in a car and gave Sail two bags, which he took to D’Souza at Trident Hotel. D’Souza counted the money and said it was only Rs 38 lakh, the affidavit stated.
Sail also claimed to have overheard a conversation where Gosavi and others discussed demanding Rs 25 crore, of which Rs 8 crore was to be paid to Wankhede.
D’Souza later alleged that Dadlani had handed over Rs 50 lakh to Gosavi, but when he realised that Gosavi was a cheat, he asked him to return the money to her.
D’Souza also claimed that Gosavi had saved someone else’s number as SW [Sameer Wankhede] and told him that he was under pressure from ‘SW’. Later, D’Souza found out that Gosavi had saved Sail’s number as ‘SW’.
Meanwhile, advocate Sudha Dwivedi had approached the MRA Marg police seeking to register an extortion case against BJP worker Manish Bhanushali, one of the nine independent witnesses in the cruise drugs bust case, Sail, Gosavi, Wankhede and Dadlani. Bhanushali was seen with Merchant, who was arrested for alleged possession of drugs, according to sources.
Last year, NCP leader Nawab Malik had tweeted that Fletcher Patel, who has been named as panch witness in at least three NCB cases, including the Rhea Chakraborty drugs case, was known to Wankhede. Malik had also posted photographs of Fletcher with Wankhede and his lawyer sister Jasmine.
Malik had also alleged that another panch in the cruise drugs haul case, Jogeshwari resident Adil Fazal Usmani, was used as a panch witness by the anti-drug agency in at least 16 cases since 2020.
