Actor Rhea Chakraborty, arrested over drugs charges linked to the Sushant Singh Rajput case, was denied bail by a Mumbai court. The bail requests of her brother Showik Chakraborty and eight other accused were also rejected. Rhea will stay in Byculla jail, where she was taken after a magistrate sent her to judicial custody till September 22. Her lawyer will now approach the Bombay High Court for bail.
In her bail request, Rhea had retracted her confession and said she was "coerced into making self-incriminatory confessions". She said she had "not committed any crime whatsoever and had been falsely implicated in the case". She had also claimed rape and death threats and "a severe toll on her mental health and well-being" because of multiple investigations.
But the Narcotics Control Bureau argued that if released on bail, the actor "may tamper with the evidence and also try to win over witnesses using her position in the society and money power".
Rhea had conscious knowledge of drugs use by her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput, said the agency, and had "made herself part of this offence by procuring drugs" for him. The anti-drugs bureau said Rhea used her credit card and payment gateways to facilitate financial transactions related to dealing of "illicit drug trafficking." It also insisted her confession was "voluntary", not coerced, and admissible in the court of law.
The anti-drugs agency said the drugs financed (by Rhea) were not meant for personal consumption but for supplying them to another person. "Therefore, Section 27A of NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act) is applicable and she cannot escape the clutches of law," it argued.
The 28-year-old actor was arrested last week on charges of buying drugs for Sushant Singh Rajput, a rising movie star whose death on June 14 is being investigated by various agencies including the CBI.
Rhea's questioning opens pandora's box
Rhea's interrogation has opened up a Pandora's box. Confronted with documentary evidence, the actress conceded she was in touch with drug peddlers who were also supplying 'buds' (curated marijuana) to various other Bollywood personalities including well-known actors, directors and producers, highly placed sources in the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) said
Based on the revelations made by Rhea, her brother Showik and four key drug peddlers of Mumbai, the NCB has prepared a list of more than two dozen suspects including kingpins of drug trafficking syndicates, peddlers and Bollywood personalities who were procuring drugs ranging from curated marijuana buds to high-quality cocaine. The NCB would soon launch a crackdown on the Bollywood-drug mafia nexus which runs deep in the film industry allegedly linked with underworld gangs.
In the NCB's remand application, the apex anti-drug agency has alleged that Rhea and her brother Showik were active members of a drug syndicate. The NCB says Showik was procuring drugs from Abdel Basit Parihar and Kaizen Ibrahim on behalf of Rhea. According to sources, during subsequent investigation the NCB discovered that Parihar and Ibrahim were linked to a top drug cartel active in Mumbai. The cartel, through Parihar and Ibrahim, was supplying drugs to other Bollywood-linked persons living in Mumbai's Bandra, Juhu and Andheri neighbourhoods.
Earlier the NCB had arrested another drug trafficker Fayaz Ahmed in Goa on September 2, who was also supplying drugs to Bollywood personalities. During Fayaz's questioning, the agency unravelled the entire network and the Bollywood-drug mafia nexus.
Ahmed revealed that drugs were being transported by means of parcels through the Foreign Post Office in New Delhi. One of the consignments was dispatched by one Dan Patel, a resident of Modugno street, Saint Laurent, Canada. Saint Laurent, a borough of Montreal city in Canada's Quebec state, is infamous for drug cartels and crime syndicates, many of whom have Indian connections.
In his questioning, Fayaz Ahmed has reportedly said that parcels containing curated marijuana were collected either from New Delhi or from a shop located in Calangute-Anjuna Road in Goa. Once the consignment reached Ahmed, the suppliers in Mumbai were contacted. For every one gram of buds, Rs 5,000 to 6000 were charged.
