The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), which has been probing a drug angle in the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, on Friday filed a chargesheet before a special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court.
The chargesheet has named 33 accused, including Rhea Chakraborty, and contains the statement of 200 witnesses. The hard copy contains over 12,000 pages and the digital format is around 30,000 pages.
As per a report by news agency IANS, the chargesheet mentions briefly the role of Sushant’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty for being instrumental in procuring and financing the drugs.
A senior NCB official related to the probe wishing anonymity told IANS: “There have been instances in which the role of Rhea has been mentioned briefly in the charge sheet filed by the NCB in a court here.”
“Rhea was instrumental in procuring and financing drugs,” the official said, adding that Rhea’s financial transactions have been corroborated in the case.
The official pointed out that the cash transactions of Rhea and then digital transfers have been mentioned in the chargesheet corroborating the use of the money for procuring and financing drugs.
The first arrest by the agency was made in September; NCB had six months’ time to file the chargesheet. The case was registered in August after the Enforcement Directorate shared private WhatsApp chats sourcing drugs between Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik Chakraborty and some of Sushant Singh Rajput’s staff.
Rhea, Showik and Sushant’s staff, Samuel Miranda, Deepesh Sawant are out on bail, the agency arrested over 30 people in connection with the case.
The agency conducted raids in several locations of Maharashtra and claimed to have busted some rackets actively operating in the city and allegedly inside Bollywood in the last six months.
The agency recorded statements of actors Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan, Rakul Preet, Shraddha Kapoor, Arjun Rampal among others.
Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan was also arrested in January. The NCB arrested film director Rishikesh Pawar who was a friend of Sushant Singh Rajput in February. Kshitij Ravi Prasad, who was previously associated with Dharma Production.
All the statements by the agency have been submitted to the court which will be verified and then the accused will have to appear in the court.
Sushant was found dead on 14 June 2020 after which many investigations were carried out and later the Narcotics Control Bureau started its probe into the drug angle from August 2020.
With ANI inputs