Former anti-narcotics officer Sameer Wankhede, whose handling of the Mumbai drugs-on-cruise case was severely criticised over loopholes, has been transferred to the Directorate General of Taxpayers Services in Chennai.
After he was removed from the Mumbai drugs case in which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested, Mr Wankhede was sent to the Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management in Mumbai.
The superstar’s son was later released on bail and his name was cleared in the case.
Mr Wankhede was the Mumbai zonal chief of the Narcotics Control Bureau, or NCB, when he and others raided the cruise ship off the city’s coast last year. He has faced action for allegedly submitting a fake caste certificate for a government job, sources had said last week.
The centre has asked the Finance Ministry to act against Mr Wankhede for his “shoddy probe” in the drugs case when he was in the NCB.
Sources have explained five irregularities in the investigation conducted by Mr Wankhede after the drugs raid. No videography was done during the search operation and there were lapses in analysing the contents of Aryan Khan’s phone, since the chats do not link him with the case, the sources said.
No medical test was done to prove consumption of drugs and one witness even turned hostile, telling the special investigation team that he was made to sign on blank papers, the sources said, adding two more witnesses told the investigation team that they weren’t at the location at the time of the NCB raid.
Another serious lapse was the clubbing of all the accused and invoking the same charges against everyone, even when Aryan Khan was found without drugs, the sources said.
