The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Tuesday arrested five more persons in connection with the cruise ship drug raid, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 16.
Those arrested on Tuesday included four persons from an event management company that had organised the party and one passenger who had allegedly consumed drugs while the ship was at sea. Four persons, three of whom were arrested on Monday night, were produced before the court on Tuesday.
The four members of the event management company – Gopal Jee Anand, Samir Seghal, Manav Singhal and Bhaskar Arora – will be produced before the court on Wednesday, an officer said. The officer added that the four have been arrested on charges of harbouring drug users on the ship and allowing its premises to be used for consuming narcotics. “They have been charged under sections 25 and 27A of the NDPS Act.”
Earlier in the day, while seeking custody of the four other accused before the court, the NCB claimed that it had arrested the suppliers linked to the cruise ship drug raid.
The central agency produced Abdul Kadar Shaikh (30) and Shreyas Nair (23) before the court, claiming that they had supplied the contraband seized on the ship. While Shaikh was arrested on Monday with 54.3 gm of mephedrone – categorised as commercial quantity – and 2.5 gm of ecstasy – categorised as intermediate quantity – Nair was arrested with 2 gm of charas, categorised as small quantity.
The NCB claimed that it had arrested Shaikh on the basis of information provided by earlier arrested accused Mohak Jaswal while Nair was arrested on the basis of co-accused Ishmeet Singh Chadha’s custodial interrogation.
Odisha residents Manish Rajgaria (30) and Avin Sahu (30) were the other two accused produced before the court. They were guests on the cruise ship. While Rajgaria was arrested with 2.4 gm of ganja, no drugs were found on Sahu. NCB counsel Advait Sethna told the court that investigation has revealed that Sahu consumed ganja twice on the ship.