NCB’s eventful tenure with Sameer Wankhede will come to an end today

Key sentence:

• On Friday, December 31, the tenure of NCB Mumbai zonal chief Sameer Wankhede, which has been marred by controversy.
• According to officials following the case, it is still unclear where he will be assigned after his NCB deputation ends. 

On Friday, December 31, the tenure of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Mumbai zonal chief Sameer Wankhede, which has been marred by controversy, will come to an end. 

Following the arrest of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan in the drugs-on-cruise case, Wankhede, a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, found himself in a pickle.

Wankhede confirmed earlier this month that he would not seek re-election to the NCB. According to officials following the case, it is still unclear where he will be assigned after his NCB deputation ends.

Following the suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, Sameer Wankhede’s tenure with the NCB was marked by investigations into an alleged Bollywood drugs syndicate. 

Starting with actor Rhea Chakraborty, the NCB interrogated and arrested a slew of high-profile Bollywood figures while Wankhede was on deputation to the central agency in September 2020.

A team led by Sameer Wankhede allegedly recovered drugs and arrested Aryan Khan and others during a raid on a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai in October. 

However, the credibility of independent witnesses used by the NCB during the raid has been questioned. It has also been claimed that NCB officials attempted to extort money from Shah Rukh Khan.

Nawab Malik, a Maharashtra minister and leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), also leveled accusations against Wankhede, alleging that the officer was born a Muslim but later forged a caste certificate to get a job in the Scheduled Caste (SC) quota.

Despite Wankhede’s denials and his father’s filing of a defamation suit against Malik, the allegations sparked outrage on social media. 

Several high-profile cases were transferred from the NCB Mumbai to a special investigation team formed by the head office, including Aryan Khan and Nawab Malik’s son-in-law.

Wankhede arrested 96 people and filed 28 cases between August and December 2020. According to the NCB, Wankhede made 234 arrests in 2021, registered 117 cases, seized over 1,791kg of drugs worth around 1,000 crore, and froze properties worth over 11 crores.