Rhea ready for arrest, says lawyer as actor appears for NCB grilling

Two days after her brother Showik was arrested in the drug probe linked to actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, actor Rhea Chakraborty appeared for questioning at the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) office in Mumbai on Sunday (September 6).

The 28-year-old actor arrived at the NCB’s Ballard Estate office at 12 noon escorted by police personnel. She was summoned in the morning.

Rhea’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde said the actor is ready for arrest as it’s a “witch-hunt.”

“Being innocent she hasn’t approached any court for anticipatory bail in all cases foisted by Bihar Police with CBI, ED and NCB,” he said referring to the three agencies that have registered cases against Rhea and others.

On Saturday, NCB said it wants to question Rhea, the main accused in the death case, to take the probe forward in the case. A team of officials early morning visited her home to serve summons to her for joining the probe.

Besides Rhea’s brother Showik, 24, the agency has also arrested Sushant’s  house manager Samuel Miranda and cook Dipesh Sawant in the drug case.

It said it wants to confront Rhea with Showik, Miranda and Sawant in order to ascertain their individual roles in this alleged drug racket after some chat records suggested banned drugs were allegedly being procured by them.

Rhea, in interviews with several news channels, said she has never consumed drugs herself. She had, however, claimed that the late actor used to consume marijuana.

Related news: CBI takes AIIMS Delhi team to Sushant’s Mumbai home for forensic probe

It is claimed that Miranda told the NCB investigators that he used to procure bud or curated marijuana for Sushant’s household. Sawant, who was arrested on Saturday, was on Sunday remanded to NCB custody till September 8 by a local court. Meanwhile, his lawyer said he was kept in custody since September 4 without being produced in court within 24 hours.

So far, a total of eight people have been arrested by NCB with six being directly linked to this probe while two were arrested when the probe was launched under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

When the probe in the case began, the agency had arrested Abbas Lakhani and Karan Arora for alleged drug peddling and officials have claimed that through them they reached Zaid Vilatra and Abdel Basit Parihar who are allegedly linked to this drugs case as they were in touch with Miranda.

Miranda, they had said, used to allegedly procure drugs from them on the purported instructions of Showik, agency officials said.

Both Lakhani and Arora have been granted bail. NCB had said it recovered 59 grams of cannabis from them.

NCB, while seeking remand of one of the accused in this case a few days back, had told a local court that it was looking into “the drug citadel in Mumbai, and especially Bollywood” in this probe.

Related news: NCB gets custody of Rhea’s brother Showik, Samuel Miranda till Sept 9

This case has given the NCB an “inkling” into the narcotics network and its penetration in Bollywood or Hindi movie industry, said NCB Deputy Director General Mutha Ashok Jain on Saturday.

Various angles surrounding the death of the 34-year-old actor are being probed by three federal agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The NCB initiated a drug angle probe in this case after the ED shared with it a report following the cloning of two mobile phones of Rhea.

Rajput was found dead at his flat in suburban Bandra area on June 14.